John Cotton on the churches of New England 9780674475007, 9780674284760

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THE JOHN HARVARD LIBRARY Bernard Bailyn Editor-in-Chief

THE JOHN HARVARD LIBRARY

John Cotton on the Churches of New England EDITED BY LARZER ZIFF

Ja THE BELKNAP PRESS OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, Massachusetts 1968

© Copyright 1968 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Distributed in Great Britain by Oxford University Press, London Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 68-17636 Printed in the United States of America

John Harvard Library books are edited at the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History Harvard University.

Contents

Introduction by Larzer Ziff 1

A Note on the Texts 37 JOHN COTTON ON THE CHURCHES OF NEW ENGLAND

A Sermon Delivered at Salem, 1636 41 The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, 1644 71 The Way of Congregational Churches Cleared, 1648 167

Index 393

Glossary of Names 367

Introduction

In seventeenth-century Massachusetts membership in the church

was a prerequisite for citizenship. It was also a qualification for belonging to the community in a broader sense: it satisfied social and spiritual impulses that reached beyond political aspirations." When the settlers debated matters of church membership they were debating an issue central to the formation of the American community.

The question of eligibility for church membership raised serious practical problems. Although the principal guides for the system wete sincere and eloquent in their claims for the historicity of Congregationalism—in The Way of Congregational Churches Cleared John Cotton devotes a chapter to the “antiquity” of that system—they were theoretical rather than historical. To Cotton’s time, all Protestants, like all Roman Catholics, had been raised in churches that admitted everyone to membership and offered the sacraments to them. Some reformed churches did deny membership to those who had lived in a demonstrably scandalous fashion, but no influential church limited membership to those whom it presumed to identify not merely as orderly in their outward behavior but also as saintly in an inward sense, because of their possession of grace. Just how such limitations on membership could become workable features of a national church was a question that more than vexed those who saw the validity of the limitations in theory.” 1 See, for example, Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Family (Boston, 1944), chap. vi, and Larzer Ziff, ‘““The Social Bond of Church Covenant,” American Quartely 10 (Winter 1958), 454-462. 2 See, for example, Geoffrey T. Nuttall, Visible Saints, The Congregational

2 INTRODUCTION Moreover, all Christians believed there was only one chutch, the catholic church, and the Reformation was, for Protestants, a reform of that single catholic church. Roman Catholicism, they held, had become so corrupt over the centuries that it was now Antichristian, but the churches they established in its stead were

not regarded as alternate ways to heaven. They were, rather, viewed collectively as the only way, the true Christian church descended clearly from Peter. It seemed, therefore, that even though the superintendency of individual churches by a pope or an oligarchy of bishops might not be desirable, still the individual churches should have some formal connection with one another since their individuality was merely the result of accidents of geography, language, and local history; essentially, they were one. In the church in England such connection was made through government by bishops, and when Puritanism succeeded in persuading large numbers that this was a half-way leaning towards Rome, the single most popular system offered as a replacement was Presbyterianism, government by elders who met in an hierarchical series of presbyteries, synods, and classes to administer local, regional, and national churches. Congregationalism, however, argued not only for the limitation of membership to the saved believers but also for the integrity of the individual church and its separateness from all other churches in matters of government. Synods might be called for advice, but each church was essentially a self-contained, selfgoverning unit. The system therefore early gained the name of Independency, though John Cotton insisted that it be called, as eventually it was, Congregationalism.

Though Congregational theory was rapidly amplified in the Way, 1640-1666 (Oxford, 1957), and Edmund S. Morgan, Visible Saints; rhe History of a Puritan Idea (New York, 1963).

INTRODUCTION 3 late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the only body of televant practice that could be cited was that of the Separatist congregations. The members of these groups, insignificant in

number and in social status, had become impatient with the slowness of reform of the episcopal system in the Church of England and had separated from it, most often, since such separation was patently illegal and punishable by death, by flee-

ing from the country. By definition, therefore, they had cut themselves off and were, willy-nilly, independent. The vast majority of Puritans, those who were to settle Massachusetts Bay and establish a Congregational system as well as those who were to control the Church of Scotland and establish a Presby-

terian system, were vociferous in their condemnation of the Separatists, Though the Church of England was in need of reform, they held, it was a true church, and separation from it was schism and therefore heretical. Reports from the Lowlands where the majority of the Separa-

tists settled in the first decade of the seventeenth century reinforced the view that Separatism was schismatic. The Separatists seemed unable to live even with one another. John Smyth’s

Amsterdam group was in continuous dispute with all other English congregations; the group led by Francis Johnson and Henry Ainsworth squabbled so seriously that it broke in two; the group led by John Robinson, which was later to settle Plymouth, left Amsterdam for Leyden in 1609 because it could not maintain a tranquil course in proximity to its fellow Separatist congregations.®

Congregationalism, then, though it might have a respectable 8 The history of these Continental Separatists is surveyed with a valuable bibliography in Henry Martyn Dexter, The Congregationalism of the Last Three Hundred Years As Seen in its Literature (New York, 1880).

4 INTRODUCTION theory, had in practice a most disputatious history. The theory affirmed that the independent, self-governing congregation was the essential unit of the true church, and that all such congregations would by the strength of grace be similar in matters of doctrine and discipline. History indicated, however, that such congregations lacked the catholic essence of the true church; their members did not communicate in other congregations and did not allow other Christians to communicate in their congregation. Yet it was Congregationalism that the single most influential group of seventeenth-century American settlers established as their church form; it was Congregationalism that satisfied and molded their political and social aspirations as well as their spiritual longings; and it was Congregationalism that succeeded to the extent of becoming not only the orthodox way in Massachusetts but an accepted independent way within the Church of England and therefore a viable alternative to Presbyterianism in the homeland after the Revolution. How it did so makes an important chapter in American history. In establishing Congregationalism, the American Puritans had to steer between outright separation from the Church of England and a spiral of schism on one hand, and a superintendency over congregations amounting to Presbyterianism on the other. They had to meet and adjust to strong opposition in practice from brilliant and dedicated men like Roger Williams, and

to take what was practical from the avowed Separatists at Plymouth and yet not go over to separation; to continue to receive the material as well as the spiritual support of a body of

English Puritans who believed them to be, at best, in partial error; and to satisfy the daily demands of a community of Englishmen struggling to keep alive on the fringe of a wilderness. That they succeeded speaks strongly for the political as

INTRODUCTION >) well as the theological skill of a small group of ministers and magistrates.

No one man could have accomplished such a task, but it was recognized in Massachusetts, and it was a cardinal article of belief among Presbyterian polemicists in England, that if one name had to be singled out as that of the chief helmsman of the course the Massachusetts Bay Puritans were following in their churches, that name was John Cotton. It was he who had earned such a reputation for piety, learning, mildness of temper, and successful church reformation during his years in England that his reports from America were received as definitive, and it was he who preeminently possessed the scholarly powers necessary to defend the Massachusetts system in terms that would relate it historically to the true apostolic church and at the same time adjust it practically to the stresses placed upon it by Presbyterianism on one side and radicals on the other.

Now that debates over church polity have receded into a murky limbo, the works of John Cotton that are devoted to defining and justifying the Congregational way are susceptible of being seen as little more than dead words from a dead hand. And, truly, they cannot usefully be approached by a modern reader without the exercise of historical imagination. But the effort is justified by the animation that the texts readily receive from it. Cotton’s Sermon Deliver’d at Salem becomes both eloquent and hard-headed when it 1s read as a lecture given in a church that had just been forced, against the will of many, to dispense with the services of Roger Williams. His Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven has the force of a constitution when read with a consciousness of the English political situation that led Thomas Goodwin, Philip Nye, and their friends, embattled at the Westminster Assembly, to stand behind it as a bulwark. And The Way of Congregational Churches Cleared is a treasury of

6 INTRODUCTION vital information and illuminating interpretation when read with a sense of the magnitude of the crisis New England underwent during the Antinomian controversy. I

In 1597, John Cotton, the thirteen-year-old son of a Derby lawyer, matriculated as a sizar at Trinity College, Cambridge." His upbringing at home and at grammar school had been sympathetic to the Puritan movement, and at Cambridge he associated himself with those students and lecturers who worked politically for a further reform of the Church of England and who bore themselves in a restrained and sober, many would say cheerless, fashion. Cotton was an excellent student, especially impressive in his mastery of the ancient tongues, but the year of his A.B., 1603,

was one in which the master of Trinity, Thomas Neville, had committed all available funds to extensive architectural revisions

so that no fellowship money was at hand. Accordingly, young John Cotton had to look elsewhere for continued support, and when he accepted a fellowship at Emmanuel College under Laurence Chaderton he not only was electing to continue his studies but was consciously moving into a closer alliance with the Puritan party. Trinity had been in a somewhat moderate position with regard to ecclesiastical reforms, but Emmanuel was a Puritan foundation—even Queen Elizabeth had referred to it by that term—where traditional vestments had been put aside, the prescribed form of public prayer was circumvented,

and the eucharist was received sitting. Indeed, scandalized orthodox students noted that those at Emmanuel took supper 4 The account of Cotton’s life is based on Larzer Ziff, The Career of John Cotton (Princeton, 1962).

INTRODUCTION 7 on Friday and from a college kitchen that faced east although the unconsecrated college chapel did not. John Cotton remained at Emmanuel for nine years, receiving his M.A. in 1606 and his ordination as a priest in 1610, before leaving for his first vicarage in 1612. Each year at Emmanuel his reputation grew, based at first on his learning, which led him to keep his Divinity Act—the required reading and defense of a thesis before an appointed opponent—in a brilliant fashion

though his opponent was the famous disputant William Chappell, and which led him to pass with ease a Hebrew examination based on Isaiah ui, that, in the opinion of another learned Puritan, “hath more hard words in it, than any place of the Bible within so short a compass.’ He became successively tutor, dean, lecturer, and catechist, and as he received more and more opportunities to preach, his fame as a skillful orator grew, and he was assured of an eager and large auditory whenever he mounted the pulpit. Though he was associated with the Puri-

tans, however, his was no plain style but one replete with “invention, elegancy, purity of style, ornaments of rhetoric, elocution, and oratorious beauty of the whole.’’® There were degrees of Puritanism—even Laurence Chaderton, a leader in that movement, had said, ‘“Those who dislike the government of the Church by bishops will substitute something far less beneficial both to Church and State”’—and Cotton’s did not extend to a distrust of the pulpit eloquence most often associated with Lancelot Andrewes, even if the doctrines he preached differed from those of the Master of Pembroke Hall. 5 John Norton, Abel Being Dead Yet Speaketh (London, 1658), p. 10.

Spelling in this and all other seventeenth-century texts has been modernized in accordance with the principles set forth in the Note on the Text. 8 [bid., p. 13.

T William Dillingham, Laurence Chaderton, D.D., trans. by Evelyn S.

Shuckburgh (Cambridge, 1884), p. 10.

8 INTRODUCTION Though Cotton’s move to Emmanuel in 1603 was, then, a signal of his engagement with the Puritan party, he later maintained that he had not become a regenerate Christian until 1609, when the sermons of Richard Sibbes brought home to him the ©

realization that he had been building his spiritual estate on his own wit and learning rather than on a conviction of sin and a consequent detection of the movings of grace within him. He had given assent to a theology he had mastered; Sibbes led him to belief based on personal experience. Cotton’s conversion had public as well as private consequences

for it resulted, among other things, in his perceiving that the elegant pulpit style that had earned him his reputation was a mere exercise of intellect. He now saw an inevitable connection between the main end of the sermon, the psychological rather than intellectual preparation of the listener for the saving experi-

ence, and the plain style. His adoption of that style affected everything he wrote. Learning was the context not the matter of his remarks, and elegance was studiously avoided as an inttusion of the self between the word of truth and its receivers. As

his contemporaries phrased it, Cotton, in his preaching and writing, sought the substance of Paul rather than Plato and the manner of Moses rather than the Muses. In July 1612 John Cotton was interviewed at Cambridge by a delegation from Boston, Lincolnshire, a town which, as a corporation, controlled the living of the Vicar of St. Botolph’s Church. The delegation, headed by Thomas Wooll, the retiring vicar who had been cited several times by the bishop’s court for nonconformity, was seeking another minister of reforming principles. They were particularly interested in Cotton, who had been warmly recommended by Paul Baynes and Sibbes, who was known to be an effective preacher, and whose residence at Emmanuel argued for the correctness of his ecclesiastical views.

INTRODUCTION 9 The city council confirmed the selection of Cotton, but the Bishop of Lincoln, William Barlow, criticized the town for choosing him. He informed Cotton, then twenty-eight, that he was too young a man to be set over so turbulent a parish. Significantly, Cotton was inclined to agree, and prepared to remain at Cambridge. But the Puritan aldermen of Boston were old hands at nonconformity, and, to quote a contemporary's report, “Understanding that one Simon Biby was to be spoken with, which was near the Bishop, they presently charmed him; and so the business went on smooth, and Mr. Cotton was a

learned man with the Bishop, and he was admitted into the place, after their manner in those days.” The name Simon Biby carried with it a marginal gloss, “Which some call Szmony and Bribery.’®

Cotton’s hesitation in the face of the bishop’s admonition and

the aldermen’s skill in meeting it were predictive of Cotton’s

impressively successful twenty-year career as vicar of St. Botolph’s. He was able, as he reports in The Way of Congrega-

tional Churches Cleared, to disarm the Arminian faction in town, to identify the saints within his parish church and withdraw into a stricter communion with them, and to serve usefully as a consultant to many troubled colleagues vexed by the bishops’

policies. He was effective in these activities as a result of his

great learning and his equable temper. But he was able to pursue his studies and keep his temper from turning zealous under persecution because of the practical political skills of the aldermen of Boston. They fenced their vicar off from oppression effectively: when protests were lodged against Cotton’s congregation within a congregation, Alderman Thomas Leverett car8 Samuel Whiting, “Concerning the Life of the Famous Mr. Cotton, Teacher to the Church at Boston, in New-England,” Chronicles of the First Planters of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, ed. Alexander Young (Boston, 1846), p. 423.

10 INTRODUCTION tied the appeal to the bishop’s court in Lincoln, located a proctor who was susceptible to aldermanic charms, and arranged

to have Cotton treated as a conformable man. When, in 1621, persons unknown shattered the stained-glass windows of St. Botolph’s, destroyed the ornaments, and mutilated the statuary, the town officials convinced the royal solicitor-general that Mr. Cotton did not connive at such an anti-episcopal display. As a result of such efficient political practices, Cotton held his Putitanic course under Bishops Barlow, Monteigne, and Williams while one after another Puritan minister, in the years 1613-1632, was silenced, imprisoned, or forced to flee. Samuel Ward of Ipswich said: “Of all men in the world I envy Mr. Cotton, of Boston, most; for he doth nothing in way of conformity, and yet hath his liberty, and I do everything that way, and cannot enjoy mine.”®

In his twenty years at St. Botolph’s, Cotton received a steady

flow of students from Cambridge, most of them sent by John Preston whom he had converted as Sibbes had converted him and who was now Chaderton’s successor as master of Emmanuel;

at Cambridge they said that Mr. Cotton was Dr. Preston's seasoning vessel. He also trained Continental ministers forced into exile by the fortunes of Protestantism in their homelands. To his Thursday afternoon and Sunday morning public lectures

he had to add public lectures on Wednesday and Thursday mornings and on Sunday afternoons. A number of the disciples

who attended him were to rise to positions of power at the Puritan revolution and to keep Cotton’s name before the English public as the most learned and reliable of the American writers. Noblemen such as Earl Lindsey, Viscount Dorchester, and the

Earl of Dorset heard Cotton preach and offered to help him 9 Ibid., p. 427.

INTRODUCTION 11 should he need influence. Puritans of all shades of reforming principle, from Roger Williams to Archbishop Ussher, visited him or sought correspondence with him. For those who had not had Cotton’s good fortune in maintaining their posts under an increasingly restrictive episcopacy,

Tattersall, near Boston, the seat of the Clintons, Earls of Lincoln, became a staging area for colonization. Cotton was in close conference with most who arrived at Tattersall and held extensive consultations with the Earl’s chaplain, Samuel Skelton, immediately before Skelton left for Salem as minister to John

Endicott’s company in 1629. In the following year Cotton journeyed to Southampton to preach the farewell sermon to a company that included a number of people from his area and was headed by John Winthrop. When he thought of the churches to be set up at some distance

from the bishops’ surveillance, Cotton was firm in his disapproval of any separateness that amounted to refusal of communion with the Church of England or Continental reformed churches. In 1629, he had praised in print the writings against Separatism of the Puritan, Arthur Hildersam;*° and in conference with Samuel Skelton he had insisted upon the fact that any member of the true church could commune in any other church though he was not a member of the particular congregation. He maintained his insistence on the essential unity of all reformed groups in his farewell sermon, reminding Winthrop’s group that England was the “Jerusalem at home” and that they must still have recoutse to it." Later in 1630 in a letter to Hugh Goodyear at Leyden, one of the few Puritan ministers who had

chosen to ally his congregation with the Dutch Reformed 10 In his Preface to Arthur Hildersam, Lectures Upon the Forth of Iohn (London, 1629). 11 John Cotton, Gods Promise to His Plantation (London, 1630).

12 INTRODUCTION Church, he wrote: “What detaineth the Separatists from joining with you, I desire to know at your leisure. Unfeigned fellowship with Christ would easily admit, yea gladly seek fellowship with His members, that walk before Him in the simplicity and purity of His ordinances.’’”

He was, therefore, “grieved” to learn from Salem that the church there denied communion to newly-arrived colonists whom

he knew to be “faithful servants of Christ,” and he was especially disturbed that his Boston parishioner, William Coddington, could not have his child baptized “because he was no

member of any particular reformed church, though of the catholic.”” He wrote Skelton: Two things herein I conceive to be erroneous, first that you think that no man may be admitted to the Sacrament, though a member of the catholic church, unless he be also a member of some particular reformed church: secondly that none of our congregations in England are particular reformed churches, but Mr. Lathrop’s [a Separatist congregation] and such as his.+8

The main part of Cotton’s letter was taken up with a scriptural refutation of the policy Skelton had adopted at Salem, and since he failed to find a correspondence between what he heard about Skelton and what he knew of Skelton from their conversations in Lincolnshire, he wrote: You went hence of another judgment, and I am afraid your change hath sprung from New Plymouth men, whom though I much esteem as godly and loving Christians, yet their grounds which they received for this tenent from Mr. Robinson, do not satisfy me.14 12 D. Plooij, The Pilgrim Fathers from A Dutch Point of View (New York, 1932), p. 87. 18 David D. Hall, “John Cotton’s Letter to Samuel Skelton,” William and Mary Quarterly, 22 (1965), 481. 14 Ibid., p. 482.

INTRODUCTION 13 With such misgivings about Skelton’s practices, Cotton was not immediately attracted to New England as a refuge on the inevitable day in 1632 when news reached him that even his politically persuasive parishioners were powerless before the gathering strength of William Laud and that pursuivants had

been sent to summon him to the High Court. He fled to London and, concealed there, was visited in his hiding place by Thomas Goodwin and John Davenport who sought to convince him that there would be no wrong attached to his conforming. But in the course of the discussions Cotton converted them to further nonconformity and propelled Goodwin onto the path that would lead him to check the Presbyterian party at the Westminster Assembly and Davenport onto the road that would lead him to found and shape the colony of New Haven along the line of Cotton’s theocratic theory. The influence that Cotton could wield over the minds of such prominent men would, ten years later, mark him as the most important of the Congregational leaders and therefore a prime target for Presbyterian attack.

In his London hiding place, Cotton, having ruled out conformity, also finally ruled out flight to the Continent. Thomas Hooker, who had tried residence in Delft and Rotterdam, now secretly appeared in London to tell Cotton that he had found this an impossible experience and was going to go to New England with some of his former parishioners from Chelmsford. Migrating Boston parishioners also pressed Cotton to join them

in New England, and he at last agreed. On a June morning in 1633 he boarded the Griffin in the Downs. The new land that awaited John Cotton harbored churches that did not accord with his ideas on church polity. He and New England would have to come to terms with one another. Though

14 INTRODUCTION the ultimate compromise he was to achieve came with difficulty, once devised it gave a crucial form to thought and habit in New England.

I] John Cotton was enthusiastically received in New England. As the most eminent ministerial resident he was quickly installed as teacher of the church in the principal town, Boston. He conformed with the practices he found in effect in New England, and in keeping with his scholarly habits confined his reservations

to his study, pondering the relationship of the prevailing model

to what he held to be ideal. This was a familiar pattern of behavior for him; he was a man who for twenty years had managed to officiate in the Church of England yet be nonconformable. The practice of the Salem church was obviously the chief

problem for Cotton. While he was still in England he had detected the taint of Separatism in Salem, and, indeed, that church, since it was the first one founded in Massachusetts Bay, had consulted with the Separatists at Plymouth Colony about its

establishment and had accepted the right hand of fellowship from Plymouth once it was established.*® Moreover, in 1634 the

troublesome Roger Williams turned up at Salem once again to exaggerate those aspects of the still plastic New England way that discomfited Cotton. Williams had first appeared in Massachusetts Bay in 1631, where, at the age of twenty-seven, he had a reputation for nonconformity and piety that gained him an invitation to minister to 15 The amount of influence Plymouth exerted upon Salem is a matter of debate. See, for example, Perry Miller, Orthodoxy in Massachusetts (Cambridge,

1933), and Larzer Ziff, “The Salem Puritans in the ‘Free Aire of a New World,’ Huntington Library Quarterly 20 (1957), 373-384.

INTRODUCTION 15 the Boston church during the temporary absence of the pastor, John Wilson. With his characteristic talent for impolitic candor, however, Williams replied that he had not come three thousand miles to associate with a church that still maintained communion with the Church of England and whose members refused to repent publicly their previous membership in that church. But this a church that regarded itself as reformed yet unseparated

would not do. The Salem church, however, eagerly called Williams to serve as fellow minister to Samuel Skelton. A shocked General Court addressed John Endicott of Salem to remind him of Williams’ refusal to serve at Boston and to inform Salem that Williams had ‘declared his opinion that the magistrate might not punish the breach of the Sabbath, nor any other offence, as it was a breach of the first table” of the ten commandments.!* The Court marveled that Salem would act so tashly, and asked that commitment to Williams be delayed until a conference had been held. Thus early did the absence of a superintending power in the Congregational system begin to create difficulties.

Williams voluntarily settled the impending dispute, however, by setting off for Plymouth, where among avowed Separatists he hoped to find a better climate. But even they were not prepared to accept what he informed them were the logical consequences

of their separation. They should maintain the purity of their separation, he said, by making it unlawful to attend services in any church that still held communion with the Church of England—which, of course, would have isolated Plymouth from Massachusetts Bay. They should not require the oath of fidelity to their commonwealth of any who were unregenerate, he said, because that oath invoked the name of the Lord and was there16 John Winthrop, Journal 1630-1649, ed. James K. Hosmer (New York, 1908), I, 62.

16 INTRODUCTION fore a species of religious communion with those who took it— this, of course, aimed at a clear separation of church and state as opposed to the theocratic ideal. Plymouth was set by the ears, and William Brewster noted with relief in 1634 that Williams

wanted once again to go to the Bay Colony. There, Brewster felt, there was a sufficient quantity of able men to deal with Williams’ dangerously attractive doctrines.” Back at Salem Williams was called to succeed the recently deceased Samuel Skelton, and the authorities of the colony decided they had to move against a dangerous radical who was now adding to his previous pronouncements the claim that King

James had lied in saying he was the first Christian prince to discover New England, had blasphemed in referring to Europe as Christendom, and had misapplied Biblical passages to his reign. As a first step, John Cotton was asked to review the offensive treatise in which Williams had displayed these opinions. Cotton, as characteristically scholarly and balanced as Williams was brilliant and headstrong, concluded that there was room for doubt as to Williams’ implications, and he became

even more convinced of it after interviews with his former English acquaintance.

By 1635, however, the authorities felt they could no longer wait upon the outcome of Cotton’s academic debates with Williams. The latter was insisting, with Salem’s approval, that the oath be withheld from the unregenerate, and his zealous

exponent, John Endicott, had removed the cross from the English ensign, claiming it was idolatrous. In England, episcopal factions at court were advancing their claims to the land occupied by the Massachusetts settlers, and the New England magistrates could not afford to tolerate such explicit proof of the allegation that they were anti-church and anti-king. The 17 Nathaniel Morton, New-Englands Memoriall (Cambridge, 1669), p. 78.

INTRODUCTION 17 General Court, therefore, barred Endicott from serving as a magistrate for a year, and aimed at Salem's pocketbook by refusing that town’s petition for further land, “because they had chosen Mr. Williams their teacher, while he stood under question of authority, and so offered contempt to the magistrates.’8 Williams, in sickbed that summer, remained firm, and informed the Salem church that not only did he refuse to communicate with the other churches in Massachusetts Bay but that unless the Salemites made the like refusal he would not communicate with them. Though incensed at the Court’s vindictive action, the Salem settlers were perceptive enough to see that to follow Williams was to enter into a spiral of schismatic refinements, and they accepted his banishment and made their peace with the Court. Williams, whose courage matched his zeal, set

off for Narragansett Bay—he would be heard from again tn times more propitious to his ideas. John Cotton had disagreed with Roger Williams, but he was distressed that Williams had been prosecuted so severely before he had had time to convince him in interview and written debate of his errors, and he regretted the banishment. He felt that if Williams had gone too far in his reforming notions, he himself

had not gone far enough. Though it was too late to help Williams, a contribution toward peace could be made in the form of a public profession of his own inadequate understanding of the correctness of Salem’s initial reformed position under Skelton. In exchange, as it were, he hoped to show Salem that it should go no further on the road to separation. Accordingly, in June 1636 he journeyed to Salem to deliver a sermon that is the first major sign of the kind of contribution he was to make

in the shaping of New England. He was a conserver and consolidator rather than a founder. In the Sermon Deliver’d at 18 Winthrop, Journal, I, 155.

18 INTRODUCTION Salem he supplied scriptural justification for the polity he had found in effect upon his arrival, but he also established its limits and showed that if it was to grow in strength it had to remain within them and not push on to further refinements that were unscriptural and that could only weaken by dividing. That his sermon was to be extraordinary was signalled by the

fact that at the outset he made a “confession” rather than beginning immediately with his text and doctrine. He admitted that Skelton was correct and he in error about the nature of a church covenant, thus contributing to the centrality in Massachusetts of the idea that regardless of a Christian’s membership

in the catholic church he must enter into a covenant with a particular visible church before he could enjoy the sacraments. The long-range implication of this was to strengthen the demo-

cratic element in the Massachusetts system, though Cotton himself was far from a democrat, insofar as it assured local autonomy in the most vital matters and brought all persons, however eminent or lowly in the world, to an asocial and apolitical standard: no one could presume too far on reputations

earned elsewhere but had to sue again for admission into the community.

One distinguishing mark of Cotton’s character, his humility, was thus revealed in the confession. In the sermon proper he also displayed at length his persuasive ability to fit scholarship to practice. For, having admitted that Skelton was correct in constituting his church anew of testifying believers, Cotton had to resolve a seeming paradox by maintaining that reformation

had gone far enough and that Williams’ insistence upon repudiation of the Church of England, which did not demand such testimony, was erroneous. On the surface it would seem that if one had to enter into a particular church regardless of his membership in the catholic church, Williams was correct in saying

INTRODUCTION 19 that those in a covenanted church should surely refuse association with the Church of England, an institution that retained corrupt practices and requited no covenanting or other signs of grace from its members. Cotton resolved the paradox with an insistence upon grace as

the mark of the true Christian and therefore upon the preeminence of the covenant of grace over any church covenant. Only the gracious may be admitted to church covenant; nevertheless, there were many such persons in uncovenanted churches like the Church of England, and to pronounce them corrupt and defiled by their membership in that church was to insist on duties, outward practices, rather than on grace. Under Use III, Cotton wrote: Suppose the church promise never to defile themselves more with any

pollutions of the sons of men, but they do defile themselves, then covenant is broken; they did covenant they would not come into false assemblies, and that they would have no fellowship with them, that did allow of false assemblies; but this covenant cometh to be broken:

if this be your covenant, it is but a covenant of works, and then no marvel though it do break and fail, seeing it stands upon duties, and keeping of duties; for being built upon the condition of duties, and standing upon performance of duties, and being broken upon neglect of duties, this is but a covenant of works.

The all-important covenant of grace was not conditional, and Cotton in his Salem sermon emphasized its everlasting nature,

and turned the inconsistency around so that it was such as Williams rather than he who were illogical. In separating from the Church of England such people were making a particular church covenant of greater importance than the invisible church, which was the community of those who were under the covenant of grace. Admission to a specific church covenant was not what admitted a man to the invisible church.

20 INTRODUCTION His emphasis on the exclusive importance of grace is what made Cotton so popular a preacher in New England as well as England. In the tradition of Richard Sibbes he gave special encouragement to the meek and hesitant, as when, in answering an “Objection” in the sermon, he said that if whilst you do with patience and constancy wait, you are drawn with everlasting love; now you have Christ in you, though you do not feel him: for as the earth is hanged upon nothing, Job xxvi, 7, so now there is a place for Christ in the heart, when it is emptied of everything besides; and such a man hath Christ, and is blessed, and the covenant of grace is his, you may safely receive him into your church fellowhip ... these kind of Christians will spring and grow, and will not profane the covenant of God, nor the covenant of the church by any unmerciful separation.

The kind of Christians who would commit an unmerciful profanation were the zealots who had “received ease from God” only to be “‘straitlaced towards their brethren.’”’ Let us be done with any assumption of superior holiness that leads to a wholesale renunciation of others, Cotton urged, and let us get on with the more important matter of strengthening weak Christians and recognizing our membership in the catholic church. ““Admonish

and reprove” your brother if you see him defiled, but do not self-righteously separate from him lest in God’s eyes you prove the ungracious one, not he. In such a manner did John Cotton knit the covenanted church

to the catholic church, knit New England to England. In so doing he helped keep Massachusetts Bay in the mainstream of modern life rather than allowing it to become, as did other exiled religious groups, an enclave of contentious sectaries who alone

were right and who, in isolation, were therefore dead to the larger human community.

INTRODUCTION 21 Ii! The persuasiveness with which John Cotton preached his doctrine of the preeminence of grace gained him a large audience in Boston. John Winthrop noted in his Journal: “It pleased the Lord to give special testimony of his presence in the church

of Boston, after Mr. Cotton was called to office there. More were converted and added to that church, than to all the other churches in the bay.’’*®

That same doctrine, however, came close to proving Cotton's

ruination in 1638 when the Antinomian controversy resulted in the trials of Anne Hutchinson. There was scarcely a doubt that the emphasis that she and her followers put on the possession of the Holy Spirit to the outright scorning of holy laws— in doctrinal terms, their insistence upon justification to the denigration of sanctification—could be found to have its roots in Cotton’s magnifying of the unconditional nature of the gift of grace and his distrust of any religion that was based on external conditions that the believer had to fulfill in order to make good his salvation. He went beyond his colleagues in his insistence that man could do nothing effectual without the Spirit—even bewail his own want of belief—and he refused to accept a man’s sanctified behavior as a valid sign that he was saved: “Through his mind be enlightened, sometimes to fear, sometimes to joy, to humiliation, to enlargement, to zealous reformation, yet rest in none of these, for these you may have and yet want Christ, and life in Him; common graces may and will deceive you.’”’*° 19 [bid., I, 116. 20 John Cotton, The New Covenant (London, 1654), pp. 14-15.

22 INTRODUCTION Although none of Cotton’s ministerial colleagues would have asserted that morality was a certain sign of piety, they tended to be more sympathetic than he to the notion that since a saint was

a good man it followed that those who conducted themselves usefully did so, in all probability, because they were inhabited by the Holy Spirit. Such a view encouraged a respect for law and fitted well with the actual fact that the state as well as the church was controlled by saved believers. Those who were labelled Antinomians, however, regarded a concern for external signs—an emphasis on fulfilling duties—as a reprehensible lingering behind in Egypt. The rapid advance on the Promised Land was to be made, they felt, only when one cast aside concern for law in his complete confidence that being possessed of the Holy Spirit he could not but act in a sanctified fashion. Anne

Hutchinson and her followers were Cotton’s most devoted parishioners and as opposition to them formed Cotton was slow

to believe that they were dangerous. He would not recognize that a theologically defensible doctrine could have dangerous social consequences for an infant colony in desperate need of a stable code of behavior. Accordingly, in the private conferences and correspondences that took place in an ineffective effort to avoid public confrontation, he took the opinionists’ side, believing that at worst they merely employed an injudicious selection of words. A public confrontation was therefore inevitable, and not until the synod called to confute the Antinomian heresies did Cotton begin to perceive that there were differences between him and the Anne Hutchinson group. His perception deepened during Anne Hutchinson’s two trials and led him slowly but firmly to relinquish her and all who chose to cleave to her into the hands of their opponents. From his point of view, he had defended the doctrine that he held in common with them but had refused to follow them into doctrinal extrava-

INTRODUCTION 23 gances. But from the point of view of others in his day, and in this, he was either a hypocrite or a coward in his early support and ultimate abandonment of the Antinomian group. The truth of the matter appears to be less dramatic but more in keeping with Cotton’s character. A scholarly and politically unrealistic person—he was used to being sheltered by aldermen —he had adhered to doctrinal purity and in so doing had encouraged a pious but more realistic political group to begin insisting upon the consequences of his doctrine. So long as the doctrine itself was under attack he stood by them, but when it became clear to him—out of their own mouths, as he would have expressed it—that they aimed at a social revolution and were willing even to pervert doctrine to achieve it, he abandoned them. Like other men who have been caught in the middle when a fluid social situation suddenly polarized, Cotton could not escape without a trace of dishonor.** Though the Presbyterians did later force Cotton into a defense

of his actions and opinions in the Antinomian controversy as well as into a defense of the New England way, nevertheless his role in the controversy is not of central relevance to his writings on polity. In the short range, the New Englanders managed to keep the Antinomian difficulty to themselves; tt did not become a matter of widespread knowledge among English Puritans until 1644 when Thomas Weld saw A Short Story of the Rise, Rezgn, and Ruine of the Antinomians through

the press, perhaps under the mistaken belief that in publishing 21 John Winthrop was satished with Cotton’s stand at Anne Hutchinson's civil trial and checked those who were less satisfied by insisting ‘““Mr. Cotton is not called to answer to anything but we are to deal with the party standing here before.’ To judge from representative works such as Edward Johnson’s Wonder Working Providences, Winthrop’s satisfaction was widely shared. But there was definitely an undercurrent of distrust of Cotton as evidenced by Thomas Shepard’s diary entry, “Mr. Cotton repents not: but is hid only.’’ Most interpreters have shared this distrust, ignoring or discounting The Way Cleared though it is one

24 INTRODUCTION Winthrop’s highly partial account of the affair at that time he was offering proof of the ability of the Congregational system to

check error. Before 1644, the news that Puritans sought from New England was practical information about the procedures followed in a Congregational church. In 1642, John Cotton, Thomas Hooker, and John Davenport were invited to attend the Westminister Assembly to aid in the settling and composing of the affairs of the church. Although none of them was able to attend, interest in their ecclesiastical polity ran high at the Assembly. The overwhelming majority of the members of that Assembly were Presbyterian—indeed, so few were the opposition members that Hooker was reported to have remained in New England because he did not want “‘to go 3,000 miles to agree with three men.’”’** The form of church

government they meant to establish differed from New England’s in three essential ways: they wanted to replace episcopacy

with a system equally comprehensive, and therefore did not insist on regeneration as a qualification for any besides the elders; they wanted the church to be governed exclusively by the elders without participation by the members, even by way of the members’ consent to the elders’ rulings; and they wanted synods to be given binding power over individual congregations.

Those who disagreed with them, the Independents, were less certain about the specific form of church government they wanted, but they were sure the Scots’ model was unsuited for England and that some system had to be devised that would allow greater freedom for individual congregations. Although the people of England in general and the soldiers of the fullest of all primary documents on the Antinomian controversy. Rather than add another interpretation, the present editor is pleased to aid in making Cotton’s own account available to all interested students. 22 Winthrop, Journal, I, 71.

INTRODUCTION 25 in Cromwell’s army in particular leaned far more towards the Independent than the Presbyterian view, within the Assembly only five ministerial members, Cotton’s friend Thomas Goodwin

being one, spoke for Independency. Realizing that they were hopelessly overwhelmed within the Assembly, they carried

their appeal to the people in Az Apologeticall Narration (1643), and there, because they recognized the impossibility of staying Presbyterianism with a merely negative program, they

announced their partiality toward the New England way. In arriving at their views of church government, they said: We had the example of the ways and practices (and those improved ...) of those multitudes of godly men of our own nation, and among them some as holy and judicious divines as this kingdom hath bred; whose sincerity in their way hath been testified before all the world, and will be unto all generations to come, by the greatest undertaking (but that of our father Abraham out of his own country, and his seed after him) a transplanting themselves many thousands miles distance, and that by sea, into a wilderness, merely to worship God more purely,

whither to allure them there could be no other invitement.?8

The New Englanders’ belief that they had been set in the wilds

to work out a laboratory model for the homeland—in Winthrop’s words, that they were as a city upon a hill; in Cotton’s, as eyes to God's people—appeared to be justified. “Great pity were it,” said Cotton from the pulpit, “that they should want any light which might possibly be afforded them.’’?4

The immediate light the New Englanders shed was on the actual workings of Congregationalism. The Presbyterians had the Church of Scotland to point to as an ecclesiastical system 23 Thomas Goodwin, Philip Nye, et al., An Apologeticall Narration (London,

ar ba Cotton, The Powring Out of the Seven Vialls (London, 1642), Sig. Bbb 4yv.

26 INTRODUCTION successful in practice as well as sound in doctrine, and the initial questions addressed to the New England ministry were questions

about how they handled specific situations within the church. Cotton had supplied several such manuals, A Coppy of a Letter of Mr. Cotton of Boston (1641) and The True Constitution of a Particular Visible Church (1642), and other New Englanders supplied other descriptions, the two most widely read being those of John Davenport and Richard Mather, both published in London in 1643 and both formulated in collaboration with other ministers in the Bay, including Cotton.” In these treatises the Massachusetts way was justified in pragmatic terms; the authors illustrated the smooth working of Congregationalism without specifically defending its authenticity. But after 1643, in addition to practical testimonies of Congregationalism’s workability, a defense of its authentic relationship to the church founded by Jesus was required, and this task was one for which John Cotton was preeminently qualified. Cotton supplied two such treatises, but he meant only one of them to stand as the whole of his mind on the matter. Around 1642, he had added to his sketchy descriptions of Bay procedures

a justification of them based on Scripture, and had sent it to England for the edification of those sympathetic to Congregationalism. This circulated so widely in manuscript that Presbyterian attacks on it were in print before it was published, without authorization, in 1645 as The Way of the Churches of Chrest in New-england. Cotton, though he did not disown it, did say that

the printing was against his wishes and that The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven (1644), published before The Way of the Churches but written after it, was his considered position on 25 John Davenport, Az Answer of the Elders of the Severall Churches in New-England unto Nine Positions Sent Over to Them (London, 1643); Richard Mather, Church-government and Church-covenant Discussed (London, 1643).

INTRODUCTION 27 church polity, and all discrepancies between the two works were to be resolved in its favor.

That The Keys was a definitive statement was signalled in the introduction supplied it by Thomas Goodwin and Philip Nye who said that although they had some minor qualifications this was “that very middle way (which in our Apology we did in the general intimate and intend) between that which 1s called Brownism, and the presbyterial government, as it is practised.” Independents throughout England, therefore, were invited to take their stand upon Cotton’s treatise, and Presbyterians faced the task of refuting it since it was a principal support of their Independent opponents. Three hundred years after its publication, The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven presents an outmoded facade; its pages appear at first glance to be unrelieved by any element of what one might consider ordinary human interest. Here the seventeenth-century theologian, at ease in the Zion of scriptural interpretation, seems to set forth his argument in a dead language. Recalling the remote days of the apostles he seems scarcely to glance at the history of his own day. For the modern reader he seems to deal in invented rather than in documented events. But the tensions of the times are in The Keys, and they drive the argument onward. Although the chief purpose of the treatise is to demonstrate that the church founded in apostolic times was indeed a Congregational one and although the chief arguments

ate scriptural, yet Te Keys takes its strength from its contemporaneity. Modern scholarship has vigorously and effectively discounted the notion that the American Puritans were early democrats who farsightedly planted the love of liberty that was to flower at the American Revolution. Cotton spoke for the majority of his brethren when he wrote, “Democracy I do not conceive that ever God did ordain as a fit government either

28 INTRODUCTION for church or commonwealth.”’** Nevertheless, The Keys reveals that the Congregational system was developed by men who were allied with those financial and political leaders whose ends were best served by an extension of the people’s liberties. Congregationalism was an important part of the democratization of Anglo-American life. Cotton’s argument for the congregation’s participation in church government is reduced to first principles in ‘‘Proposition III” in the seventh chapter: If the brethren of the congregation were not the first subject of their church liberty, then they derived it either from their own elders, or from other churches. But they derived it not from their own elders: for they had power and liberty to choose their own elders, as hath been showed above, and therefore they had this liberty before they had elders, and so could not derive it from them.

Nor did they derive it from other particular churches. For all particular churches are of equal liberty and power within themselves, not one of them subordinate to another.

Cotton is here talking about the Christian rights of saints, not about the liberty of the people in a state of nature, a term which to him would have meant a state of damnation. But he is insisting, as others later would argue about civil authority, that all church authority initially resides in the believers, is only delegated by them, and must ultimately be referred back to them. Liberty, in Cotton’s full context, is sufficiently restricted to make it a different term from the modern one, but the kernel ts there, and is pointed to by Nye and Goodwin in their opening epistle. Seeking an analogy for the model of a Congregational church as set forth by Cotton, they hit easily upon the incorporated town: 26 Thomas Hutchinson, “Copy of a Letter from Mr. Cotton to Lord Say and Seal in the Year 1636,” in The History of Massachusetts Bay, ed. Lawrence S. Mayo (Cambridge, 1936), I, 415.

INTRODUCTION 29 As in some of our towns corporate, to a company of aldermen, the rulers, and a common council, a body of the people, there useth to be the like: he giving unto the elders or presbytery a binding power

of rule and authority peculiar unto them; and unto the brethren, distinct and apart, an interest of power to concur with them, and that such affairs should not be transacted, but with the joint agreement of both.

The judicial system also offered Nye and Goodwin an analogy for Cotton’s argument. Justifying his “dispersion of interests” within the Congregational system, and especially the elders’ need to gain the consent of the congregation before passing the sentence of excommunication, they point out: The sentencing to death of any subject in the kingdom, as it is the highest civil punishment, so of all other the nearest and exactest parallel to this in spirituals, of cutting a soul off and delivering it to Satan; yet the power of this high judgment is not put into the hands of an assembly of lawyers only, no not of all the judges themselves, men selected for wisdom, faithfulness, and gravity, who are yet by office designed to have an interest herein; but when they upon any special cause or difficulty, for council and direction in such judgment do all meet (as sometimes they do): yet they have not power to pronounce this sentence of death upon any man without the concurrence of a jury of his peers, which are of his own rank; and in corporations, as such as are inhabitants of the same place.

And they go on to appeal to the fact that Englishmen rightly consider the jury system “one of the glories of our laws, and do make boast of it,” and that the same sentiment should lead Englishmen to see the need for a like system in their church.

This contemporaneity, however, though it added immediate appeal to an argument addressed to a nation in rebellion against its monarch, came close to destroying the historical bases on which the entire Congregational structure rested. If the original argument for the system was that it represented a return to the

30 INTRODUCTION true Biblical model, then how could it also pretend to be more closely in keeping with modern municipal and judicial practices ? Cotton attempts to resolve the paradox thus: For a mother to bear her young daughter in her arms, and not to suffer it to go on its own feet, whilest it is in the infancy, is kindly and comely: but when the damsel is grown up to riper years, for the mother still to bear her in her arms, for fear of stumbling, it were an unnecessary burden to the mother, and a reproach to the virgin; such

is the case here: the community of churches (according to the Hebrew phrase) is as the mother; each particular church is as the daughter. In the Old Testament, while the church was in her nonage,

it was not unseasonable to leave the whole guidance and bearing thereof in the hands of their tutors and governors . . . But now in the days of the New Testament, when the churches are grown up (ot

should be grown at least) to more maturity, it were meet more to give the church liberty to stand alone, and to walk upon her legs.

The days of the New Testament are not just the Biblical period but “now.” Even as the church is being restored to purity it is growing up, and increasingly deserves more independence in its government. This historical theory has obvious millennial overtones, but for the present purpose it is most pertinent to note

that the theory made political and social as well as Biblical models available to Cotton and those who agreed with him. The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven thus has a contemporary democratic strain sinewing its scriptural arguments. IV

John Owen became at the Restoration the leader of the Independent party, a position toward which he moved during the Commonwealth when Cromwell selected him as vice-chancellor of Oxford. But until 1644 he was an Essex rector of Presbyterian

principles, and his change of mind came about when he read

INTRODUCTION 31 The Keys. He reported: “In the pursuit and management of this work, quite beside and contrary to my expectation, at a time and season wherein I could expect nothing on that account

but ruin in this world; without the knowledge or advice of, ot conference with, any one person of that judgment, I was pre-

vailed on to seceive that and those principles which I had thought to have set myself in opposition to.”*" Most other Presbyterians were not, of course, persuaded by

Cotton, but they recognized the power of his arguments, and, as the pamphlet war over the nature of the church to be established in England continued to rage, no work was singled out so

frequently and treated at such length by so many eminent polemicists as was The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, The years immediately following 1643, moreover, were years in which Baptists, Seekers, Familists, and a variety of other sectaries

were emboldened to speak out, and in addition to Presbyterian attacks on the Massachusetts system arguments were published by the radical wing of Puritanism. When Robert Baillie, the most effective of the Presbyterian polemicists, published his

A Dissuasive from the Errours of our Time (1645), he had available to him not only the “official” reports on Massachusetts

but the complaints furnished by conservative critics such as Thomas Lechford and radical critics such as Roger Williams, as

well as the description of the Antinomian crisis given in the Short Story.

Baillie’s chief task was to prove that Congregationalism was unscriptural and unworkable, and in the latter area he received considerable support, which he worked for every advantage,

from Roger Williams and the Sort Story. Even though as a Presbyterian he was certainly as far from Williams’ views as were the Congregationalists, and as an orthodox believer he “7 John Owen, Review of the True Nature of Schisme (Oxford, 1657), p. 35.

32 INTRODUCTION would have stoutly prosecuted Anne Hutchinson, he used all the material that pointed up weakness in Cotton’s position and in the Massachusetts way as grist for his mill. The Antinomian controversy especially appealed to him as evidence of the shakt-

ness of Cotton’s opinions and conduct, which if they were unsound in doctrinal matters must also be suspect in matters of ecclesiastical polity. The tireless Baillie accumulated a great deal of evidence that

showed, he thought, the giddiness of John Cotton. In addition to Cotton’s relationship to Anne Hutchinson, as evidenced by the Short Story, he used an unpublished treatise Cotton had written over twenty years earlier in Lincolnshire that was, in part, uncalvinistic, and copies of letters such as that Cotton wrote in 1629 to Skelton, in order to show that Congregationalism, in spite of what its adherents said, was a patched-together, spus-of-the-moment system. He presented quotations from his collection of material, which he called ‘‘testimonies,” and gave them each a catalog letter for identification. John Cotton could not very well let the Dissuasive pass unanswered since his character as well as his theories were held up to disrepute in an apparently well-documented argument. His

reply was The Way of Congregational Churches Cleared (1648). The book contains two treatises: the first and longer one attempts an almost point-by-point refutation of Baillie and is, therefore, the most personal piece Cotton ever published; the second answers scriptural and logical objections offered to I'he Keys by Daniel Cawdrey in his Vindiciae Clavium (1645), which was published anonymously, and by Samuel Rutherford in his The Due Right of Presbyteries (1644). Cotton was also aware that an influential attack on Independency by Thomas Edwards, Antapologia (1644), was in print but he was unable to procure a copy of it.

INTRODUCTION 33 The second treatise, while it will continue to exist as an important document in Congregational history, does not sustain the same interest as the answer to Baillie which forced Cotton

to write for the only time in his career about his life and the history of Massachusetts. Because he did so, The Way of Congregational Churches Cleared is a docament of the first importance in seventeenth-century American history and in the history of Puritanism. Here Cotton gives his explanation of the relation-

ship of Congregationalism to Separatism, sketches the family tree of New England theory, contrasts life under the bishops 1n England with life as it was led in New England, and, perhaps of greatest interest, gives his account of what happened during the Antinomian controversy. Since Baillie made the greatest use of that controversy and since Cotton, in the manner of his day, answers Baillie by following his sequence, the controversy teceives extensive but never quite repetitious treatment; the reader interested principally in this part of the treatise must take care to read on beyond the obvious sections since Cotton returns to the topic time and again in response to Baillie’s repeated harping on the matter. Though the historical importance of the contents of The Way

Cleared is self-evident, the value of its tone must also be weighed. The reader who has fellowed the political development of Congregationalism in New England and Old notes a shift in the voice in which The Way Cleared is presented. This shift is heralded in Nathanael Homes’s introduction when he says, “If in the reign of episcopacy, those parishes were quiet where could not be found work for the hierarchy to intermeddle;

surely then the classes may conveniently permit particular congregations (prostrated below them as it were at their feet) to rest in peace, whiles they meetly manage their own church affairs within their own sphere.” There was, in 1648, no longer

34 INTRODUCTION any question of Congregationalism becoming the national church system; those of that way were simply arguing for a small place

in the sun. Cotton strikes this note immediately in his opening chapter: “It is one thing for Japhet and Shem to dewell together by voluntary consociation; another thing for Shem to rule over

Japhet by undesired and unallowed jurisiction. . . . Let not Japhet be a servant to Shem, no more than Shem to Japhet.” Behind this attitude resides Cotton’s consciousness that Presbyterians did not differ from him in any way nearly so essential as did Roger Williams, Samuel Gorton, and a host of others in New England who were, in the 1640’s, demanding freedom to

practice in their unorthodox fashion. Presbyterianism was as forthright as Congregationalism in its abhorrence of these opinionists. Since it appeared that Presbyterianism would never become the controlling system in the colony, and Congregationalism would never become the controlling system in the homeland, and since adherents of both polities were united in Chris-

tain essentials, the time had come to explore ways of living together so that both might turn their attention to the destroyers of doctrine. Puritanism was moving into another political phase. In one of the most incisive sections of the first treatise of The Way Cleared, chapter four, Cotton gives a deft demonstration of his contention that Congregationalism is as effective as Presbyterianism in countering heretics. The second treatise is a shadow of dreary things to come in the debate on ecclesiastical polity. Although the reality now was

that no single system would have unqualified dominance, the contentions and confutations went on, more and more drained of the vitality they possessed when palpably connected with wide-sweeping political consequences. Rutherford and Baillie were to respond to The Way Cleared, and to be answered by

INTRODUCTION 35 Cotton in Of the Holinesse of Church-members (1650). And Cawdrey, dropping his anonymity, was to prepare, in The Inconsistency of the Independent Way with the Scripture and Itself

(1651), an elaborate compilation of contradictions between Cotton’s Te Way of the Churches of Christ and his Keys, and between both of these and Thomas Hooker’s Survey of the Summe of Church-discipline (1648). But the controversy, though still acrimonious, was increasingly academic. John Cotton died in December 1652. His answer to Cawdrey was unfinished though it was subsequently completed and published by John Owen.”® In that response he said that he discerned “no dissent at all’’ between other Congregationalists and himself, but added that if such did exist he was content to have his brethren qualify his work if it so pleased them. The times, not his character, had driven him into contention, and he was grateful for any opportunity to reduce its scope.

The eminence of John Cotton in his day and his significance in American history rest only in part on his writings on polity. He was undeniably the greatest preacher in the first decades of New England history, and he was, for his contemporaries, a greater theologian than he was a polemicist. Nor can his writings on polity ultimately be separated from his Christian doctrine, his millennialism, or his views on such matters as liberty of con-

science.” But in his writings on polity, especially those teprinted in the present volume, John Cotton speaks more directly #8 John Cotton, A Defense of Mr. John Cotton from the Imputation of Selfe Contradiction Charged on Him by Mr. Dan: Cavvdrey (Oxford, 1658).

29 In connection with the issue of liberty of conscience John Cotton's reputation has suffered badly because of the brilliant response he drew from Roger Williams, though it was Williams, not he, as he pointed out at Salem, who was quick to separate from a fallen brother and act in a straitlaced fashion toward those who were less enlightened.

36 INTRODUCTION to twentieth-century concerns about liberty and authority than he does elsewhere, and makes clear that arguments of ecclesiastical polity in his day were not hait-splitting antiquarian squab-

bles but central debates about the terms on which men in England and America would live with one another.

A Note on the Texts The intention of this edition is to present to the modern reader the complete contents of three of John Cotton’s works, in pages which offer no arbitrary typographical obstacles and yet do not alter the author’s meaning. Accordingly, since the principles of capitalization that are inferable from the original texts are not followed consistently in those texts, I have chosen

to follow modern practice in these matters. The spelling of words, including names of people and places, also has been modernized, but modern words have not been substituted for archaic words: so, for example, “‘libertie’” appears as ‘‘liberty,”’ but ‘‘accompt’’ appears as such rather than as “‘account.’’ Greek words are spelled according to modern principles rather than in

duplication of the font of the seventeenth-century printer. Italics are retained when their function is to indicate emphases or quotations (indirect as well as direct), but not for the indication of proper names as in the original editions. Syntax, how-

ever, is a more subtle matter, and therefore with the single exception of marginal quotation marks the original punctuation marks have been preserved, archaic as their use may seem, in order to avoid the unconscious sacrifice of meaning and emphasis to mere tidiness. The text of A Sermon Preached by the Reverend Mr. John Cotton Deliver’d at Salem, 1636 (1713) is based on the copy

38 A NOTE ON THE TEXTS in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society; no known variants exist. The text of Tbe Keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven

(1644) is based on the copy in the Yale University Library; this is one of several variant forms, but it is, in the judgment of

Henry Martyn Dexter and Julius H. Tuttle, earlier than the British Museum copy from which it differs slightly. The text of The Way of Congregational Churches Cleared (1648) is based on the copy in the Houghton Library of Harvard University; it does not vary in any significant way from other copies of the first edition.

All footnotes marked by superscript letters appeared as marginal notes in the original texts; those marked by superscript numbers and enclosed in square brackets have been supplied by the present editor. Since a large number of persons are named

in the texts they have been identified in a single Glossary of Names at the back of the book rather than in footnotes scattered throughout.

eA Sermon Delivered at Salem, 1636

By the Reverend, Old Mr. JOHN COTTON, At Salem, June, 1636 Having been moved by your reverend elders, and some others,

to speak a word of instruction and exhortation; I thought it meet to begin with some word of confession. At the first coming over of some of our honored magistrates, it so fell out, that they did arrive at this congregation, the sacra-

ment being near to be administered, and a child being born to one of them; they themselves could neither be admitted to the Lord’s Table, nor their child to baptism: When I myself heard of this, I wrote unto the pastor of this congregation’ (now deceased) doubting of the lawfulness of that practice; thinking then, that the faithful and godly men coming where the seals were to be dispensed, and having right unto the covenant, had right also unto the seals thereof, and so that their children had tight unto the former seal of baptism: something I wrote to that purpose, as I conceived, then requisite. It pleased God that He sent me a large and loving answer; but through the extremity of sickness then upon me, I could not read it;? and afterwards being shuffled among other papers, I could never find it to this very day: but what might have been for instruction to me from 1 [This letter to Samuel Skelton has been reprinted in David D. Hall, ‘John Cotton’s Letter to Samuel Skelton,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 23 (July, 1965), 478-485.] 2 [In 1630, Cotton and his first wife were stricken with malaria which proved fatal for her and forced him into a long period of convalescence, part of which he spent at the manor of Theophilus Clinton, fourth Earl of Lincoln.]

42 CHURCHES OF NEW ENGLAND his letters, the Lord hath since shewed unto me by diligent search of the Scriptures. So that however I apprehended the matter at that time, there was just reason for what was done: and now lest I should seem to alter my judgment herein without some weighty cause, let me tell you what prevailed with me, to cause me to assent to the judgment and practise of the churches here.

The Reasons are Iwo Reas. 1. The first is taken from the covenant unto whom it doth belong. I formerly conceived, that unto all the faithful the covenant did belong, and unto their seed also, not considering that which since I have learned and found, that the covenant which is made to me, and to my seed, zs not made to the righteousness of faith at large, but to them that are righteous by the faith of the seed of Abraham; that is, to such believers as are confederate with Abraham. And therefore it was, that though circumcision the old seal of the covenant (answerable to our baptism) was administered to all the seed of Abraham, yet not unto those godly men that believed in his age: For Abraham and

his family were then the only visible church of God upon the face of the earth. And though Melchizedeck lived at that time, who was an heir of the righteousness of faith, yet not of the covenant of Abraham, unless he will join himself to the family of Abraham. Nor Job himself, though he was a man none like him upon the face of the earth; nor his friends; Men fearing God, in their generation, were yet uncapable of circumcision, unless they had joined themselves to the family of Abraham. And therefore you shall never read that the covenant belongeth to me, and to my seed, unless I be of the seed of Abraham, or joined to the family of Abraham. So we shall find it in the

A SERMON 43 sanction of the Second Commandment, That the Lord showeth mercy to thousands of the generations of such as love and fear Him: that commandment hath respect to God’s instituted ordinances. Let Jonah go to Nineveh, and by the blessing of God prevail with thousands, then the covenant of grace belongs to them; but what? to their seed also? No, verily not, unless their parents were confederate to the seed of Abraham. So that if you desite mercy to you, and to your seed, keep then to the ordtnances, and to the God of the ordinances, and so you shall keep a constant entail of the covenant to you, and to your seed; for unless men enjoy the covenant this way, it doth not belong unto their seed. This being not considered, I fear, hath brought great

mischief to all the churches that have not attended unto this principle, and hath been an occasion of much mistake to many godly parents, who plead their covenant for their seed, and many times so find little blessing; for though God hath made a covenant with them, yet it is but as a scattered stone, not laid orderly in any building; so that truly they may plead; but when God cometh to answer, He will make it appear that He did never

open his mouth for a covenant with their seed until they be confederate with Abraham. And therefore seeing my letter, as I understand, is in many of

your hands, I rather make a plaister bigger than the sore, than that it should be pleaded against my practise after my departure. Reas. 2. The second reason is this, unto them that are not in covenant, a minister may not dispense an act of power and intrude himself, neither hath he any power until he be called; and then only over such as call him: and therefore if you should come to crave baptism for your children, or the Lord’s Supper for yourselves, of a minister whom you have not called over you, he hath no power, and therefore unto you he cannot dispense an act of power: So that although the hearts of God’s

44 CHURCHES OF NEW ENGLAND people might be enlarged many times, to do such things, yet the

law of the Lord’s gospel doth restrain them, until men have entered into covenant, and not their own strait lacedness that keeps them back from dispensing such things.

A Third Reason which is coincident with the second, and serveth to amplify the point, that they have no power over you, it will plainly appear from this ground; they that have no power

to excommunicate you, they have no power to admit you to communion with them; but till you join yourselves in covenant with the church, they have no power of excommunication; there-

fore till then, they have no power to admit you to communion with them, for there is the like reason of both. Now having expressed this word of confesszon, together with my acknowledgement of my dependence upon the Lord for grief and sorrow; I this desire, that if my letter remain written in any of your hands, you would not now look at it as my judg-

ment; though sometime it was, yet now you have heard it retracted again by me, professing also, that if any thing which I have since written or spoken, God give me to see it, appear different from the truth, I will retract it also; in the mean time blame me not, if I do not retract it.

Jeremiah L, 5 Come, and let us cleave unto the Lord in a perpetual and everlasting covenant which shall never be forgotten.

Some translations reads it:° 3 [With the exception of ‘not’ for ‘never’ this is the reading of the Authorized Version of 1611. Cotton’s scholarship in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew was impressive, and this control led him to quote Biblical passages in his own translation as well as to paraphrase or abbreviate passages so as to cite only the relevant material. As a result, it is difficult to say with conviction that he preferred one to another of the published translations although it does appear that his citations are

A SERMON 45 Come, and let us join ourselves lo the Lord in a perpetual covenant that shall never be forgollen.

These be the words which were foretold by Jeremiah, which the people of God returning out of captivity of Babel should use for the encouragement of one another to return to Zion, and there to bind themselves in church covenant with the Lord; for so you read it in the verse foregoing: In those days (when the Lord shall destroy Babel) the Children of Israel shall come, and the children of Judah together, going, and weeping as they go; and seek the Lord their God. They shall ask the way to Zion with faces thitherward, saying, Come, and let us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant, that shall not be forgotten. In these words of encouragement or exhortation, you may observe.

1. The encouragement to the work, Come, and let us join ourselves to the Lord.

2. This joining is set forth. (1.) By the means of it; by a covenant. (2.) That covenant is here amplified by a double adjunct of a double eternity.

1. Here is the covenant itself, that is perpetual. 2. Set forth not only by the durance of it, but by the report and memory of it unto all ages: that shall never be forgotten. To speak to joining to the Lord at large, is neither the principal intendment of my text, nor may it be so convenient to speak only to it. I shall have occasion to open 1t in showing the way in which they do join to the Lord.

The doctrine which I would commend to your Christian consideration, is this; generally closer to the Authorized Version than to the Geneva Bible. That this might be so is not surprising since he spent the first twenty years of his ministry as a vicar in an English church where the Authorized Version was used. ]

46 CHURCHES OF NEW ENGLAND Doctrine That the church covenant, wherewith the people of Israel and Judah did join themselves to the Lord, especially after their return from Babel; and yet more especially under the days of the New Testament, was a perpetual covenant. Come, let us join ourselves to the Lord.

Israel and Judah spake this as they were a Church, and as they were about to renew church fellowship; Jet us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant that shall never be forgotten. You read the like expression, Jer. xxxi, 31, 32, 33, 34. This shall be my covenant with the house of Israel, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And vet. 34, I will forgive their iniquities, and remember their sins no more. It is therefore an everlasting covenant; and He doth make the main difference between this and the former covenant to lie in this; whereas they break that covenant, ver. 32. This covenant shall not be broken. The Lord made a covenant with them before, but that covenant they brake; and I regarded them not, saith the Lord: as it is repeated, Heb. viii, 8 to 13. But in this latter covenant, He will remember their sins no more, and therefore He doth speak of the Old Testament, as of that which doth vanish away, but for the New Testament, He will establish that; according to what is written, Jer. xxxli, 40. I will make an everlasting covenant with them, to do them good: but I will put my fear into their hearts, that they shall not depart from me. The like we also read, Ezek. xvi, 60. Though they have despised the oath in breaking the covenant; nevertheless, I will remember

my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth, and I will establish unto thee an everlasting covenant. And wherein doth

A SERMON AT it differ from the old covenant? I know not better how to explain it than by laying both of them together, both the old covenant and this new covenant, which he doth more renew in the days of the New Testament. In the old covenant you may observe a fourfold act of God, and a double act of the people. First. The Lord doth prepare his people, and calleth them to Mount Sinai, and there revealeth himself in thunderings and lightnings, and flames of fire, so that the stoutest spirits amongst

them quaked; and Moses though a man full of faith, yet he saith of himself, I exceedingly tremble and fear; and so did all the people; and when they heard the voice of the thunders, and saw the lightnings, Exod. xx, 18 to 21. they said to Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear, but let not God speak with us lest we die. Thus did the Lord prepare them by breaking, for if the Lord do intend some real and serious work, He will then shake the foundation of the stubborness of their hearts, and bring them to see their own stubborness and baseness, for else they would despise it. Secondly. ‘The second act of God is a Commandment which He doth put forth, wherein He doth require an exact obedience unto all the Commandments of the law, and to his statute and judgments, Exod. xix, 5. If you will obey my voice indeed, saith the Lord, and keep my covenant; then you shall be my peculiar treasure above all people. Now this covenant of God consisteth of moral laws, and statutes and judgments, unto all which he doth require obedience, even to all that is written in the Law, Deut. xxvil, 27. Thirdly. The Lord doth profess unto them all that should keep covenant, that they should live by keeping covenant. And this is the grand and principal promise wrapping up all other, Lev. xviii, 5. And the apostle doth interpret the meaning of that

48 CHURCHES OF NEW ENGLAND promise, Gal. iii, 12. The law is not of faith, but the man that doth these things shall live in them: and this is the promise of life which God giveth to those that keep covenant. Fourthly. The fourth act of God in making this covenant is, a heavy threatening of a curse to any that shall break these commandments, Deut. xxvii, 22; Gal. iii, 10. Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the law to do them. Now there are two acts of the people. 1. They do profess universal obedience unto all the commandments, Deut. v, 27; Exod. xix, 8. Twice they repeat it, A// that the Lord shall say unto us, we will hear it, and do it. Only consider this, they promise it in some kind of opinion of theit own insufficiency; like men under pangs of conscience, they do believe that they shall be able to keep and do all that the Lord shall say unto them. O that there were such an heart in thera! saith the Lord, Deut. v, 29. Or as the word is in the original; Who shall give them such a heart? But this they promise. 2. They yield themselves to be accursed of God, if they shall not keep that covenant; and therefore when it was pronounced, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the law to do them, all the people did say, Amen; and so their faith lay upon a curse: this is the old covenant that God made with his people, and is called a covenant of works; the Lord requireth righteousness and works, He promiseth life to their works, and they say, Aven, to enter into a curse. Now this was a temporal covenant; this my covenant they brake, saith the Lord; and they did quickly turn aside from the ways of the Lord, and therefore Moses when he cometh and seeth

the calf which they had made, he brake the tables of the covenant.

A SERMON 49 Now for the covenant that is everlasting, we may observe therein also four acts of God towards his people. First. Look as He prepareth the other by a spirit of bondage, so he doth prepare these for his everlasting covenant, by a spirit of poverty; and they are poor and afflicted in spirit, in sense of their own unworthiness and insufficiency that which the Lord doth wish to the other, Deut. v, 29. He worketh in these, Zeph.

iii, 12. Then shall be brought home to Zion a poor and an afflicted people: He meaneth not in respect of their civil estates, for there was not a feeble people among them; but as they stood in their spirits, they were empty, and as they thought destitute

of God, and therefore should seek the Lord and his face, and his strength, like those that had lost both church and covenant; unto those the Lord will have an eye, and He will dwell with men of a contrite spirit, Isai. lvii, 15,16. And therefore with a blessing unto these, the Lord Christ doth begin his sermon in the Mount, Matt. v, 3. Blessed are the poor in spirit. He doth not only afflict them with a spirit of bondage; but when He cometh to make a covenant of grace, the people are insufficient to do all which the Lord requireth; and this is a spirit of poverty. Secondly. When the Lord hath brought his people to be poor in spirit, He doth then promise them,

1. Christ: He giveth Him for a covenant, Isai. xlii, 6. I have called thee in righteousness: I will give thee for a covenant unto the Gentiles. When the Lord maketh a covenant of grace, this is the gift of God; his is the principal blessing of the covenant, Isai. xlix, 8. And the Lord will not give life in them to keep, and by them to uphold, but Jesus Christ for both. 2. In Jesus Christ He doth give everlasting communion with Him. Through Christ He will take away the stony heart, and give a heart of flesh; and He will bring with Him everlasting

50 CHURCHES OF NEW ENGLAND tighteousness, Dan. ix, 24. That is to say, such pardon of sin as He will never revoke more, that justification which He will work in Christ, He will never repent of; and therefore He saith, Jer. xxxi, 34. He will remember their sins no more: and for their sanctification He promiseth, Jer. xxxii, 40. I will put my fear

in thei hearts, that they shall not depart from me. And so in all the blessings of the covenant, the Lord will give an everlasting union and communion with Him, in the enjoyment of them. Thirdly. ‘These three things the Lord doth require.

1. Faith: ‘That is to say a yielding of the soul to the Lord, as unable for this work, and yet to wait upon Him for righteousness, Ezek. xxxvi, 37.1 will be enquired for this of the house

of Israel to do it for them. Not only to be sought unto for the mercy, but I will be sought, that is, they shall seek me, they shall seek his face and his strength to do it all for them.

2. He doth require the obedzence of faith: and this is expressly called for, Rom. xvi, 26. That is, for such righteousness, as none can work by any graces of their own; but which being wrought in them doth put life and strength into all their duties.

3. He doth require of his people that they should be of a melting frame of spirit, in regard of all their whorishness, whereby they have profaned his name; they shall wail and bemoan this: and therefore it is said of them in the verse before the text, that weeping they should go, for all the evils that they

have wrought in God's sight: And this is that which we read, Ezek. vi, 9. They that escape of you shall remember me among the nations whither they shall be carried captives, because I am broken with their whorish heart, which hath departed from me, and with their eyes which go a whoring after their idols: and they shall loathe themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations. This doth the Lord require of his people: but observe this withal, that He doth not require it

A SERMON 51 in a way of a legal command, but with an all sufficient virtue, whereby He will work in them what He doth require; so that doth He require, that they should walk holily betore Him, He himself doth also work this, for in this everlasting covenant, the commandments of God are promises; for this will I be inquired, even to do all that He doth require, Zeph. iii, 12. They shall trust in the name of the Lord. And so for the obedience of faith, Ezek. xxxvi, 27. I will cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my judgments and do them. He will make us able to do it, and willing to do it, and so to do it. And this is the true meaning of all that the Lord doth require in the everlasting covenant; when He doth command He doth promise. Doth He requite seeking of Him? He will put his spirit within us: Doth He require weeping and mourning? He will pour down a spirit

of grace and supplication, and they shall seek Him whom they have pierced, and shall mourn for Him, Zech. xii, 10. So that this is the everlasting covenant. The Lord prepareth the heart: certain duties indeed He doth lay upon them; as to believe in his name, to yield the obedience of faith, and to mourn for Him; and He doth convey an effectual power to work them. Fourthly. The fourth act is an act of cursing belonging to this covenant.

1. To them that do not receive it.

2. To those that do apostate from it: to them that do not receive it, Heb. ii, 2,3. If the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience, received a just recompense of reward, how shall we escape if [we] neglect so great salvation? The neglecting of it brings desperate misery. To those that do apostate from it, Heb. x, 29. Of how much sorer punishment shall they be thought worthy of who have trodden under foot the Son of God, and have counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith they were sanctified, an unholy

52. CHURCHES OF NEW ENGLAND thing, and have done despite unto the spirit of grace. This covenant is that which is spoken of, Deut. xxix, 1. beside the cove-

nant made in Mount Horeb: and to this covenant belongeth a heavy curse, Deut. xxx, 17, 18. If thy heart turn away that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them, I denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely

perish, and that ye shall not prolong your days upon the land wither thou passest over Jordan to possess it. And that it is the covenant of grace, we may perceive by comparing, Deut. xxx, ver. 11 to the 14 with Rom. xvi, 6. So that we may see the Lord doth threaten a heavy curse to fall upon them that transgress this covenant. Now for the people’s part: their acts are two.

1. They fall down before the Lord confessing their unworthiness of any mercy.

2. Confessing their own inability and want of strength; and this is that which Joshua laboreth to possess the people with, Josh. xxiv, 19. There he telleth them, Ye cannot serve the Lord your God; that they might not trust in their own strength: and therefore when the Lord doth make this covenant with Abra-

ham, he fell on his face, Gen. xvii, 3 in sense of his own unworthiness. Why this covenant is such an everlasting covenant?

Reas. 1. Is from the root and fountain of it, Jer. xxxi, 3. I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with mercy have I drawn thee. What moveth the Lord to be thus earnest and

zealous in drawing men to Christ? No man can come to me, saith Christ, except the Father which hath sent me draw him, John vi, 44. How cometh this to pass? I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore have I drawn thee. Now he will carry

his work an end in his with a mighty power, through all the backwardness of their own spirits: And this is the ground men-

A SERMON 53 tioned, Psal. lii, 4,5,9. The Lord is merciful and full of compassion. He will be mindful of his covenant forever: He hath sent redemption to his people, and commandeth his covenant forever. And how cometh this to pass? His redeeming love is the cause of it; as the covenant of works springeth from his justice; and hence it is that the apostle saith, Rom. vu, 12. The commandment is holy and just and good; if the creature keep covenant the Lord will reward; but if not He will punish; but to whom his covenant is from love and mercy, them He will draw with everlasting mercy. 2. Another principal reason is taken from the surety; though

the Israelites had Moses for a mediator, yet they had him not for a surety. Now Jesus Christ is made the surety of the covenant, Heb. iv, 6. A surety is not for a testament, but for a covenant; no need is of a surety on God’s part, He never brake covenant with any; but if a surety be needful, doubtless it lieth on our part; and therefore it is said, I will give thee for a covenant, even Christ himself, Isai. iv, 2,3. I will make an everlasting

covenant with thee, even the sure mercies of David: behold, I have given him for a witness to the people. And hence it is that all the promises of this covenant are made directly to Jesus Christ; the old covenant was made to the people, but this 1s made to Christ. To Abraham and to his seed were promises made, He speaketh not of his seeds, as of many, but as of one even Christ,

Gal. iii, 16. And in Him the promises are yea and amen to us; yea, that is affirmed, amen; that is, confirmed: so long therefore as this church keepeth her to Christ, and holdeth Christ for her head and husband, the Lord doth keep covenant; and He hath promised to the elect seed, that they shall keep covenant, for He hath said, they shall not depart from Christ, and then they can never depart from the covenant, and though they break covenant, yet if they keep close unto Christ, they have the covenant,

54 CHURCHES OF NEW ENGLAND although they break it. And though you read of a temporary faith, that doth endure for a season, Matt. xiii, 20, 21. And so in the parallel place, Luke iii, 13. you shall read that they are of the stony soil, that receive the word with joy, and for a time believe; and so for a time receive sundry spiritual gifts, and that with joy; and some with fear and trembling also, as the thorny soil, for they want not depth of earth, but are deeply humbled,

and yet bring forth no fruit unto perfection, because they are not brought to that faith in Jesus Christ by which they are sanctified. Now therefore so long as this covenant is kept, and so long as the members of the church keep close to Christ, so long this covenant is not broken. And hence it is that when the Jews had committed the greatest sin that ever was committed upon the face of the earth, yet the apostles did not break communion with them, notwithstanding that fearful injury of putting to death the Lord of life; because they might have done it of ignorance, and therefore, Acts iii, 1. they went and joined with him in prayer; why did not they know that they had crucified a just man? and is not this a horrible profanation of the covenant? No, no, brethren, this will not break an everlasting covenant. Father, forgive them, they know not what they do; our Saviour prayeth for them, the apostles keep communion with them; here is the spirit of a Saviour, and of his blessed apostles: but when they do put away known Christ, Acts xi, 45, 46, when they contradicted and blasphemed, then what says the apostles ? It was necessary the word of God should fwst have been spoken

unto you, but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. And so also it was a dreadful proceeding which they use in this case: Acts xix, 7, 8, 9. He went into the synagogue, and spake boldly for the space of three months, dispuling and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God. But when divers were

A SERMON DD hardened, and believed not, but spake evil of that way before the multitude, he departed from them, and separated the disciples,

—So mark you what it is that doth dissolve this everlasting covenant; not this that they kill the Messias; it was a horrible murder; but yet they may not separate for murder: What! if it be the eternal Son of God! You may not separate for that neither so long as you do not sin against knowledge; but when they do sin against knowledge, and after they have been taught and con-

vinced, do yet rebel, then is this everlasting covenant broken, else it is not broken till they come to this desperate extremity.

ust 1. The use of this point in the first place, may shew us from hence, a ground of that which some of us (yet but few) saw the truth of, in our native country, namely the necessity of a church covenant to the institution of a church, Come, and let us join ourselves to the Lord: that which doth make a people a joined people with God, that doth make a church: What is that? The covenant of grace doth make a people, a joined people with

God, and therefore a church of God: and therefore you shall find that when the Lord establishes Israel for a church unto himself, He maketh this covenant; not only that in Mount Horeb, but He doth make another covenant with them in the plains of Moab, Deut. xxix, 10, 17. And so by this means they come to be established to be a church unto the living God. For further clearing of this, consider this one argument. That whereby a church is at first established to be a chutch; that whereby being fallen, a church is restored, that which being broken, a church is broken; that giveth being to a church.

But by this a church is at first established, and by this it is restored when it is fallen, and by breaking this, the church is broken. This therefore giveth the being to a church. By this a church is at first established. You are here this day that the Lord might establish you to be his people, Deut. xxviii, 12, 13.

56 CHURCHES OF NEW ENGLAND And how was the church renewed, but by renewing of this covenant in the days of Asa, 2 Chron. xv, 12. And so in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, chap. ix, 38, chap. x, 29. And afterwards when the Lord would cast off his people, Zech. xi, 10, 14. He brake the staff of beauty, and the staff of bands: This now followeth, that so many of us, as have come to the ordinances of God, and have partaken of the seals of the covenant, and have not entered into a covenant, have violated the seals of the covenant which have not been given to the elect of God in general, but to the church of God; and therefore look at the covenant by which you have entered here, as the ability of your state, which

by no changes you are forever to be removed from, but may foreever keep it by fellowship with Jesus Christ. USE U. In the Second Place, let me provoke myself, and all my brethren, and all the churches to consider, what kind of covenant you have entered, or will enter into: if you shall come

hither into this country, and shall here confess your sins, that you have profaned the name of God withal, if you take Christ for your king, and priest and prophet, and if you shall profess to walk in all his ways, this may all be but a covenant of works. The elders of the church propound it, will you renounce all your sinful pollutions? Will you keep covenant? And enter into a covenant with the church, and take Christ, and promise to walk after all God’s ordinances? You answer, all this we will do; all this is no more than the old covenant: for you are much deceived if you think there was no speech of Christ in the cove-

nant of works. What were the ceremonies but shadows of Christ? What was the laying the hand on the head of the sacrifice, but the laying hold upon Christ Jesus? What was the blood of the sacrifice? Was it not the blood of Christ? And what was the atonement by that blood? Was it not the atonement which is by Christ ? All the understanding Israelites did see

A SERMON 57 that these things did point at Christ. Now, if we do enter into a covenant to keep the ordinances of the law, of the gospel, and of the civil state, (for that was the tripartive covenant) all this may be but a covenant of works. What then must we do? We must fall down before the Lord in our spirits, and profess ourselves insufficient to keep any covenant, and profess ourselves unworthy that the Lord should keep any covenant with us; as to say, Lord! who am 1? Or what is my father’s house, that the Lord should ever look upon such a poor soul as I am? What doth the church lay hold upon duties, and there’s an end? No, no, there are no true servants of Jesus Christ, but they must be drawn out of themselves by a spirit of bondage, and unto Christ by a spirit of poverty; and then a soul seeth there is much in Christ, but he cannot hope there is anything for him: now the Lord doth draw a man on to Christ Jesus, and calleth him to believe in Christ, but yet he is not able to reach Him. Now then, if the Lord draw

the soul to depend upon Christ, and shall go forth, and not undertake anything in his own strength; so you will keep it by the strength of the Lord also; now the Lord will have peace with you, and the gates of Hell shall never prevail against you. Build a church upon any other foundation but faith, and the profession of faith, and it will break into manifold distempers. But if the church be built upon this rock; storms and winds will not so much as shake it, it being built upon faith, and faith upon Christ Jesus: by this means the covenant will keep us constantly, sweetly, and fruitfully, in an everlasting kind of serviceable usefulness one to another. USE WI. The use in the third place, is of direction, upon what terms you may separate. Suppose the church promise never to defile themselves more with any pollutions of the sons of men, but they do defile themselves, then covenant is broken; they did covenant they would not come into false assemblies,

58 CHURCHES OF NEW ENGLAND and that they would have no fellowship with them, that did allow of false assemblies; but this covenant cometh to be broken: if this be your covenant, it is but a covenant of works, and then no marvel though it do break and fail, seeing it stands

upon duties, and keeping of duties; for being built upon the condition of duties, and standing upon performance of duties, and being broken upon neglect of duties, this is but a covenant of works; and yet you may be married to Christ in this. You come and resolve to walk in all ordinances, and undertake to reform both church and commonwealth; in such a covenant the Lord is content to take you by the hand and become a husband

to you, Jer. xxxi, 32. And what will a husband do, he will rejoice with you, and you will find comfort in duties; your heart hath been refreshed that you may see you have Jesus Christ in your bosom. He will also reveal secrets unto you, He will cast

in seeds of sundry good things among you, so that you shall prophecy in his name, and have a seed of prayer, and many good things, and yet may want everlasting love; you may find much comfort, and yet you will find some or other to give offence, or some or other to take offence, and you will break with breaking upon breaking until you be like sheep without a shepherd. This

is not the covenant, therefore brother, upon which thou and I must live in church-fellowship everlastingly, though herein thou hast had comfort, and that unspeakable; such thou mayest have and yet run upon a covenant of works.

2. A second branch of this use may be to teach us whereupon a man may build separation. Not upon breach of duty though they transgress; and prostrate their sabbaths, defiling themselves with unclean devices of men. Is the covenant of grace broken? It is not broken until you have convinced this people of

their sin, Acts iti, 17. Because, if the covenant be a covenant of grace, Jesus Christ doth step in, and all the breaches are fastened

A SERMON a9 upon Him. When then is the church of Christ broken from Him? Not when she doth crucify Him, nor when she doth pluck the crown of sovereignty from his head; these things she may do of ignorance: but when they are convinced that they have broken his will, and transgressed the rule of his gospel: now, if out of haughtiness of spirit, they will not see an error, but will have their own ways still; now it is no sin of ignorance, no sin of infirmity. Now when men sin not in infirmity, not in pang of a passion, as Peter denied his master, nor in pang of a lust, as David when he committed adultery, but when in cool blood, men do reject the word of life. Now, since they have put the word of God from them, you may break off from them and the blessing of Him that dwelt in the bush will be on your heads. When it cometh to this that the church doth separate from Christ, not from Christ but from known Christ, and not from known Christ in weakness of passion, or lust, but in cool blood; now the Lord in heaven will speak a blessing to your Separation; but if you will separate upon any other ground, you go upon a covenant of works: and if there have been any transgression of this nature, return, and return again unto the church. And this let me further commend unto you, let the church look to her covenant, and let no member come in but he that Axoweth Christ, and that knoweth he is a Child of Wrath; and let him go on, not in his own strength, but in a depending frame upon Jesus Christ, and then all the world will know that you have made an everlasting covenant: hold Christ, and hold the covenant and promises and blessings of the covenant.

USE Iv. The fourth use may serve, to teach any private Christian, whether thou beest joined to the Lord in an everlasting covenant. If thou buildeth upon a covenant of works, the end of all thy faith will be to say amen to a curse, Deut. xxvii, 21. If thou hast entered into a covenant of grace, the end of thy

60 CHURCHES OF NEW ENGLAND faith will be the salvation of thy soul, and this is the faith of the gospel, J Pet. i, 8,9.

Quest. But how shall I know whether I have built upon an everlasting covenant, or no? Ams. 1. The Lord hath drawn thee to make this everlasting covenant, thou did’st not take up upon thy own accord: mind therefore what I say, The Lord draweth partly by a spirit of bondage, partly by a spirit of adoption: If you never found yourself a fire-brand of Hell, if your conscience were never afflicted with your dangerous estate by nature, you were never yet in Jesus Christ. You will say, I trust in Christ, and look to be saved by his righteousness. Were you ever afflicted with sense

of your own unrighteousness? If you say, no, I pray you read, John viit, 30. As He spake these things, many believed on Him. They trusted on Him for salvation. Did you then take the covenant? See what followeth: Jesus saith unto them, If you continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: they were never acquainted with bondage; they hoped bondage belonged to any rather than to them, and was more fit for Gentiles than for Jews. But what saith Christ? W4osoever committeth sin, the same is the servant of sin. If the Son shall make you free, then shall you be free indeed. And afterwards he telleth them, You are of your Father the Devil. For if a soul were never yet bruised with sin, and with the sense of sin, he never yet laid hold upon Christ, with true justifying faith; such an one will not continue in God's house forever. Object. You will say, those that are brought under Christian parents, they are not affected with such terrors as others ave, that have lived in roaring distempers of them, it 1s great reason that God should so bring them on by showing them thew fearful

A SERMON 61 misery; but these have been well trained up, and 1 for my patt, saith one, cannot tell whether ever God did work this upon me? Ans. If the state of such persons be good, I profess, I do not know how to interpret the speech of Christ. These men are the children of Abraham, and yet if they do not see their bondage, they are not free by the Son; there is difference in the measure

of the spirit of bondage; as there is difference betwixt the lancing and pricking of a boil, and yet both Ict out the corruption, the one with a lesser, the other with a greater issue: therefore if the Lord doth not cut thee off from all thy good education, believe it, thou art not yet in Christ, this faith of thine will fail thee, if thou so livest, and so diest. Object. But thou wilt say, I know the pangs of conscience, and the terrors of it, and I have seen the error of my way, and have cast off my lewd company; and since I know that the Lord requireth that I should seek Him in church estate; I have come some thousands of miles for that end, and I could not endure to see such things as ave done by the devices of men: will not this hold?

Ans. I beseech you consider it, you have fallen upon this reformation, you have undertaken a covenant, yet now you have failed, and what then have you done? I go to Christ, and desire

Him to sprinkle me with the blood of his covenant. Is not this

a safe estate? Truly this is no more than the very covenant of works, which the people of Israel entered into at Horeb, the Lord shook the foundations of their hearts; upon it they entered into a covenant; Al/ that God commandeth us, we will hear it and do it: and if they did offend, they then go to the appointed sacrifice; and what, saith the soul in such a case? I thank God, I find some peace to my conscience. All this you may do, you may reform yourselves and families, and churches; and when you fail at any time, you may return to Christ, and He may give

62 CHURCHES OF NEW ENGLAND you some remorse, as he did to the Israelites, Psal. Ixxviii, 34, 35, 36. All this may be by a spirit of bondage: He in mercy forgave their iniquities, and destroyed them not. So they may come to have their sins pardoned, but this kind of pardon is but a reprievement; it is not in everlasting righteousness and mercy: they pray for Christ, and mercy, and He doth sprinkle them, and then they see and find, that the Lord hath been merciful unto them: but this will not do, the Lord will soon call back such pardon, as may plainly appear: Matt. xviii, 28. A certain man owed his Lord ten thousand talents, but when he had nothing to pay, he fell down at his master’s feet, and said, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all; his master had compassion on him, and loosed him, and let him go; was this in everlasting mercy? See what followeth. This fellow would pay all; and thus it is with these men, that have been under a spirit of bondage, they will cry hard for mercy, and promise to pay all in time; and now in their dealings with their brethren they are full of censoriousness, and will not bate an inch of any covenant; and

they will take a man by the throat, though it be but for an hundred pence: and then what saith the Lord of such a servant? Oh! thou wicked servant, I forgave thee that great debt, shouldest not thou have had compassion of thy fellow servant? He is then wroth, and delivers him up to the tormentors, until he hath

paid the utmost farthing; even so shall my heavenly Father do unto you. When men have received ease from God, and then

are strait laced towards their brethren, then doth the Lord revoke his pardon. So that reformation is no assurance that God

hath made an everlasting covenant with us. And mind you further, all the graces that you have laid hold upon, have sprung from your own righteousness. Thou hast taken a promise, did it belong to thee? If not it will fail you; you say you have been humbled, and come to Christ, and He hath refreshed you, mark

A SERMON 63 whereupon it is built; upon your humaliation? No, but I come to Christ. Do you so? Who brought you to Christ? He saith, No man can come to me except the Father draw him. Now, come to such an one, and say, go to prayer; saith the poor soul, I cannot pray; be humbled, I cannot be humbled; apply promises, they belong to any rather than to me: Such a frame of spirit there is in every one whom the Father draweth: if you come to Christ by virtue of anything which is in you, it is but a legal work. And I pray consider, what it will amount unto, you will find, that these men will breed distraction in your churches, such members will make no choice how they hear, or how they deal with their brethren; look to it therefore carefully, when they come into the church, for otherwise you will find everlasting confusion, rather than an everlasting covenant. 2. Now then, doth the Lord draw you to Christ, when you are broken in the sense of your own sins, and of your own righteousness ? When you look at duties you are not able to do them, not able to hear or pray aright. If the Lord do thus draw you by his everlasting arm, He will put a spirit into you, that will cause you to wait for Christ, and to wait for Him until He doth shew mercy upon you; and if you may but find mercy at the last, you will be quiet and contented with it. And whilst you do with patience and constancy wait, you are drawn with everlasting love; now you have Christ in you, though you do not feel Him: for as the earth is hanged upon nothing, Job xxvi, 7, so now there is a place for Christ in the heart, when it is emptied of everything besides; and such a man hath Christ, and is blessed, and the covenant of grace is his, you may safely receive him into

your church fellowship; and though he do neither know Christ nor his covenant to be his, yet he will wait for Him, knowing there is none in heaven but Him, or in earth in comparison of Him. And you shall find such meek in spirit and merciful, and

64 CHURCHES OF NEW ENGLAND mourning for sin: these kind of Christians will spring and grow, and will not profane the covenant of God, nor the covenant of the church by any unmerciful separation. Such neither stray on the right hand nor on the left; but when you convince them, that they have sinned against Christ and his church, they will go and

complain bitterly of all the wrong they have done to Christ, and his church or covenant, and mourn for all the profanation of his name: and for the grief that they have put upon the spirits

of his brethren; and these are true Israelites indeed, in whom there is no guile. Now cometh the Son with his personal work, (as He saith, John vi, 44. No man knows the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son reveals Him:) in which He doth show the soul, that all this former work was the mighty hand of God,

whereby He hath drawn the soul unto Jesus Christ, and afterwatds doth assure and clear it unto the soul in some measure, that this way is the way wherein God leadeth all his elect ones. Now where the Son leadeth, the Holy Ghost beginneth to work his proper work in the soul, and sealeth all this to the soul; for the soul will not rest in a weak hope that Jesus Christ is his, but doth seek for more and better security of Jesus Christ. If he have a promise never so clear, yet it doth not quiet his spirit fully, it doth stay him from sinking, but not from searching. When Nathan told David, 2 Sam. xii, 13. The Lord hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not die; as plain a promise as any could be, and David knew that he spake it from the word of the Lord. And what doth he now? Doth that satisfy? No verily. But many men who had run upon a covenant of works, would have took it to themselves: if they had been humbled, and after received; but a child of God, though a minister should so convince him, that he could not deny but the promise belongs to him, yet he searches further. And so David, Psal. li, 1, doth still beg for mercy, Have mercy upon me, O Lord, etc. Why, had not David been told that the Lord had put away his sins, (for this psalm

A SERMON 65 was penned when Nathan had spoken to him, as appears by the

title:) What would he have? Surely he saw need of further mercy. Make me to hear the voice of joy and gladness, and establish me with thy free spirit: And thus he wrestles with God and prays for it; according to what the apostle speaks, Ephes. i, 13. In whom after ye believed, ye were sealed with the holy spirit of promise. And when the soul hath received this, then doth he sleep in quietness, and hath full contentment, and still he doth yet depend on Christ Jesus, fearing lest he should grieve and quench the spirit; and such a soul it 1s unto whom the Lord hath made an everlasting covenant. If this man have broken any law of God, you shall soon bring him about to see his errors; and all this doth show a man, he is a poor empty creature; and this soul is brought lower and lower, and nearer and nearer to Jesus Christ. So if we do wisely consider this, it may serve to give us a taste of discerning whether we be in an everlasting covenant, or no. USE V. The use in the fifth place, is of consolation unto all the faithful servants of God, whom God hath made this ever-

lasting covenant withal: you will find that this will never be forgotten. You have entered into such a covenant, wherein Christ is yours, and the covenant yours, and all the promises yours, and all the blessings yours, and the whole world yours; and that which is the strength of the consolation, they are yours everlastingly, if the Lord bring you out of yourselves, by a spirit of bondage, and unto Christ by a spirit of poverty; so that you wait upon Him and cannot rest, until Christ hath revealed him-

self to you by his spirit: here is your comfort, the Lord hath made with you an everlasting covenant which shall never be forgotten. This was David’s comfort, 2 Sam. xxiii, 5. Although my house be not so with God, yet He hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure; for that is all my salvation, and all my desire, although He make it not to

66 CHURCHES OF NEW ENGLAND grow. Though my house do not flourish with ordinances, not in ruling justly, as the Lord requires; though my house be out of order, and commonwealth out of order, yet He hath made an

everlasting covenant. God hath laid hold upon Christ, and Christ hath laid hold upon me, and this is his stay and comfort, although God make it not to grow. And I beseech you consider it, all those that have temptations to separation, and some that have conceits of too much liberty. It is not hearing that makes a

man clean, as we may see, Acts xvii, 32, 33, 34. When they heard the apostles speak of the resurrection from the dead, some mocked, and some said, we will hear thee again of this matter, and some clave to him and believed; all that heard him did not cleave to him, but only some of them. And if you have

heard in England, you do thereby neither cleave unto your covenant, nor order, unless you partake of the seals of the covenant, then indeed you join unto them. Now, this is the nature of the comfort of an everlasting covenant, though we fail in families, and in churches, yet if Christ be ours, the everlasting covenant is ours. Indeed when Moses came and saw the Israelites worshipping the golden calf, Exod. xxxii, 19, because he saw they had broken covenant with God, therefore he brake

the tables of the covenant; to show the Lord would have no fellowship with them; and if the covenant had not been tfenewed, they had perished. But come you to David’s covenant, Psal. Ixxxix, 28 to the 34 verse. My covenant, saith the Lord, shall stand fast forever: tf his children forsake my law, I will visit their transgressions with a roa; but my loving kindness will I not take from them. This covenant doth not stand on keeping

commandments, but this is all our delight, that the Lord will not break covenant with us, nor alter the thing that is gone out of his lips. Consider therefore, for here is a great deal of difference, your covenant is not a point of order only, but the founda-

tion of all your comfort; and therefore look not at it as a

A SERMON 67 complement, for it is the well-ordered covenant of God, even the security of your souls. Object. But some will say, this would indeed much comfort

me, that hath been delivered, but if a man touch any unclean thing, he is defiled, and if I touch him that hath touched any unclean thing, I am defiled also, Num. xix, 13,14. Therefore sadness is upon me night and day for the sins of the church, and this doth eat up all my comfort? Ans. I pray you to consider it. I will but interpret what it 1s to touch a dead man, and to touch dead ordinances. I cannot give you a better interpretation than by that expression, which the apostle useth, 2 Cor. vii, 1. It 7s good for a man not to touch

a woman. If so be a man touch a strange woman, so as to be familiar to plead for her, and to connive with her, this man ts defiled; and if I now touch this man so as to be familiar with him, and to keep fellowship with him, I am also defiled. So in case the church do tolerate these, that do defile themselves with any sinful pollution, do not I make myself unclean now by touching this church? God forbid, unless it be by touching them

with familiar connivance. But if I do now touch them, with a sharp reproof, this doth indeed touch the church, but it is so far from defiling, as that it doth hold forth the purity of his heart that toucheth them: and if you do forbear communion with the church when you know the church hath defiled herself, if you shall not come home to the church, and bewail your separation, your not touching the church hath defiled you, Lev. xix, 17. You

see the church lie in sin, you will not touch her, then you sin against her, and have broken your covenant. Will you suffer your brother’s ox to lie in the mire? and will not pluck it out? And are not brethren more than oxen. And I beseech you consider another place of Scripture, (and the Lord be merciful to those that have perverted the sense of it:) in Hag. ii, 12,13. whete it is said, They were all unclean, as by the touch of a dead

68 CHURCHES OF NEW ENGLAND man, both prince and priest, and people were unclean. Very godly men they were, yet so busy with the world, that temple work was neglected, expressly against the commandment of God; for they did not only leave it off when the king restrained them with a strong hand, but in the days of Darius also (the successor of Artaxerxes) they did forbear and cease from temple work; and therefore now they are neither accepted of God, nor prospered in the outward man, they were all unclean, as by the

touch of a dead man: but do Haggai and Zechariah now separate from them? No, no, brethren, they touch them to the quick, and so recover their brethren, and deliver their souls, though they be dead and defiled; yet it is not for the people of God to say, we will touch them; you shall be unclean if you touch them

not: touch them, how? With dalliance, and familiarity and closeth with them: not so, for that was the sin of old Eli that he did bear with his children too much, and touched them no mote sharply. But herein stood the faithfulness of these two holy prophets, that they did touch their brethren, and that thoroughly, so that the Lord did stir them up to set about temple work; and then He doth promise all that they went about should be clean and pure. I pray you therefore consider it: | am marvellously afraid of separation from churches upon any breach of duty; they who do separate for such causes, think they are sprinkled with the water of separation: but believe it, they are separated from Christ Jesus forever, if they so live and so die. Therefore if you belong to Christ, He will shew you it

is not the water of separation that will serve your turn, but getting Christ Jesus, and sitting closer to Him, and to your brethren, by admonishing and reproving them, if you see them defiled. This will keep you clean, and your hearts clean, and your souls comfortable: That the Lord hath made an everlasting covenant with you that shall never be forgotten.

She Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, 1644

TO THE READER The greatest commotions in kingdoms have for the most part been raised and maintained for and about power, and liberties

of the rulers and the tuled, together with the due bounds and limits of either: and the like hath fallen out in churches, ana is continued to this day in the sharpest contentions (though now the seat of the war is changed) who should be the first adequate and complete subject of that chutch-power, which Christ hath left on earth; how bounded, and to whom committed. This con-

troversy is in a special manner the lot of these present times: and now that most parties (that can pretend any thing towards it) have in several ages had their turns and vicissitudes of so long a possession of it, and their pleas for their several pretenses, have been so much and so long heard, it may well be hoped it ts

near determining; and that Christ will shortly settle this power upon the right heirs to whom He primitively did bequeath tt. In those former darker times, this golden ball was thrown up by the clergy (so called) alone to run for among themselves: and as they quietly possessed the name WAneoc, the clergy, and of the church, appropriated to themselves; so answerably all manner of interest in power or cognisance of matters of the church, was wholly left and quitted to them: whilst the people that then knew not the law, having given up their souls to an implicit faith in what was to be believed, did much more suffer themselves to be deprived of all liberties in church affairs. This royal donation bestowed by Christ upon his church, was taken

72 JOHN COTTON up ana’ placed in so high thrones of bishops, popes, general councils, etc. not only far above these things on earth, the people; but things in heaven also, we mean the angels and ministers of the churches themselves; in so great a remoteness Jrom the people, that the least right or interest therein, was not so much as suspected to belong to them. But towards these latter times, after many removals of it down again, and this as the issue of many suits again and again renewed and removed, and upon the sentence (even of whole states) as oft reversed, it hath now in these our days been brought so near unto the people, that they also have begun to plead and sue for a portion, and legacy bequeathed them in it. The saints (in these knowing

times) finding that the key of knowledge hath so far opened their hearts, that they see with their own eyes into the substantials of godliness, and that through the instruction and guidance of their teachers, they are enabled to understand for themselves such other things as they are to join in the practise of, they do therefore further (many of them) begin more than to suspect, that some share in the key of power should likewise appertain unto them. It was the unhappiness of those, who fist in these latter times

revived this plea of the people’s right, to err on the other extreme (as it hath ever been the fate of truth, when it frst ariseth in the church from under that long night of darkness which Antichrist haa brought upon the world to have a long shadow of error to accompany it) by laying the plea and claim on their behalf unto the whole power; and that the elders set over them did but exercise the power for them, which was properly theirs, and which Christ had (as they contended) radically and oviginally estated in the people only. But after that all titles have been pleaded, of those that are 1 [A superfluous ‘‘and” omitted.]

THE KEYS 73 content with nothing but the whole, the final judgment ana sentence may (possibly) fall to be a suitable and due proportioned distribution and disperson of this power into several interests, and the whole to neither part. In commonwealths, it is a dispersion of several portions of power and rights into several hands, jointly to concur and agree in acts and process of weight and moment, which causeth that healthful Kpaors* and constitution of them, which makes them lasting and preserves their peace, when none of all sorts find they are excluded, but

as they have a share of concernment, so that a fit measure of power or privilege is left and betrusted to them. And accoraingly the wisdom of the first constitutors of commonwealths is most seen in such a just balancing of power and privileges, ana besides also in setting the exact limits of that which is committed

unto each; yea and is more admired by us in this than in their other laws; and in experience, a clear and distinct definement and confinement of all such parcels of power, both for the kind and extent of them, is judged to be as essentially necessary (if not more) than what ever other statutes, that set out the kinds and degrees of crimes or penalties. So in that polity or government by which Christ would have

his churches ordered, the right disposal of the power therein (we humbly suppose) may lie in a due and proportioned allotment and dispersion (though not in the same measure ana degree) into divers hands, according unto the several concernments and interests that each rank in his church may have; rather than in an entire and sole trust committed to any one man (though never so able) or any sort or kind of men or officers, although diversified into never so many subordinations under one another. And in like manner, we cannot but imagine

that Christ hath been as exact in setting forth the true bounds 2 [Mixture.]

74 JOHN COTTON and limits of what ever portion of power He hath imparted unto

any (if we of this age could attain rightly to discern it) as He hath been in ordering what kind of censures, and for what sins ana what degrees of proceedings unto those censures, which we find He hath been punctual in. Now the scope which this grave and judicious author in this treatise doth pursue, 1s to lay forth the just lines and terviers of this division of church power, unto all the several subjects of it; to the end to allay the contentions now on foot, about it. And in general he lays this fundamental maxim, that holds in common true of all the particulars, to whom any portion of power can be supposed to be committed: that look whatever power ot tight any of the possessors and subjects thereof may have, they have it each, alike immediately (that is, in respect of a mediation of delegation or dependence on each other) from Christ, and so are each, the first subjects of that power that is alloted to them. And for the particular subjects themselves, he follows that division (in the handling of them) which the controversy itself hath made unto his hands; to wit, 1. What power each single congregation (which is endowed with a charter to be a body-politic to Christ) hath granted to it to exercise within itself: and 2. What measure, or rather, kind of power Christ hath placed in neighbor churches without it, and in association with zt.

For the first. As he supposeth, each congregation, such as to have the privilege of enjoying a presbytery, or company of more or less elders, proper unto itself; so being thus presbyterated, he asserteth this incorporate body or society to be the first and primary subject of a complete and entire power within itself over its own members; yea, and the sole native subject of the power of ordination and excommunication, which is the highest censure. And whereas this corporation consisteth both of elders

THE KEYS 75 and brethren, (for as for women and children, there is a special exception by a statute-law of Christ against their enjoyment of any part of this public power;) his scope is to demonstrate a distinct and several share and interest of power, in matters of common concernment, vouchsafed to each of these, and dispersed among both, by charter from the Lord: as in some of our towns corporate, to 4 company of aldermen, the rulers, and a common council, a body of the people, there useth to be the like®: he giving unto the elders or presbytery 4 binaing power of rule and authority proper and peculiar unto them; ana unto the brethren, distinct and apart, an interest of power and privilege to concur with them, and that such affairs should not be transacted, but with the joint agreement of both, though out of a different right: so that as a church of brethren only, could not proceed to any public censures, without they have elders over them, so nor in the church have the elders power to censure without the concurrence of the people; and likewise so, as each alone hath not power of excommunicating the whole of either, though together they have power over any particular person or persons in each.

And because these particular congregations, both elders and people, may disagree and miscarry, and abuse this power committed to them; he therefore, secondly, asserteth an association or communion of churches, sending their elders and messengers into a synod, (so he purposely chooseth to style those assemblies of elders which the reformed churches do call classes or presbyteries, that so he might distinguish them from those presbyteries of congregations before mentioned) and acknowledges

that it is an ordinance of Christ, unto whom Christ hath (in 8 [The model was also followed in civil polity in New England where the General Court was made up of magistrates, analagous to aldermen in England or to elders in Congregational church polity, and deputies, analagous to members of the common council in England or church members in Congregational polity.]

76 JOHN COTTON relation to rectifying maladministrations and healing dissentions

in particular congregations, and the like cases) committed a due and just measure of power, suited and proportioned to those ends; and furnished them, not only with ability to gzve counsel and advice, but further upon such occasions with a ministerial

power and authority to determine, declare and enjoin such things as may tend to the reducing such congtegations to right and peace. Only in his bounding and defining this power, he affirms it to be* first for the kind and quality of it, but a dogmatical or doctrinal power, (though stamped with authority ministerial as an ordinance of Christ) whether in judging of controversies of faith (when they disturb the peace of particutar congregations, and which themselves find too difficult for then) or in discerning matters of fact and what censures they do aeserve: but not armed with authority and power of excommuntcating or delivering unto Satan, e/ther the congregations or the members of them: but they in such cases, having declared and judged the nature of the offense, and admonished the peccant

churches, and discerned what they ought to do with thew offending members; they are to leave the formal act of this censure to that authority which can only execute it, placed by Christ in those churches themselves; which if they deny to do, or persist in their miscarriage, then to determine to withdraw communion from them. And also for the extent of this power in such assemblies and association of chutches, he limits and confines that also unto cases, and with cautions (which will appear in the discourse) to wit, they they shoula not entrench or impair the privilege of entire jurisdiction committed unto each congregation (as a liberty purchased them by Chvist’s blood) but to leave them free to the exercise and use thereof, until they abuse that power, or are unable to manage it; and in this 4 [Period omitted. ]

THE KEYS 77 case only to assist, guide, and direct them, and not take on them to administer it for them, but with them, and by them.

As for ourselves, we are yet, neither afraid, nor ashamed to make profession (in the midst of all the high waves on both sides dashing on us) that the substance of this brief extract from the author’s larger discourse, is that very middle way (which in our Apology® we did in the general intimate and intend) between that which is called Brownism, and the ptesbyterial government, as it is practised; whereof the one doth in effect put the chief (if not the whole) of the rule and government into the hands of the people, and drowns the elders’ votes (who are but a few) in the major part of theirs: and the other, taking the chief and the principal parts of that rule (which we conceive is the due of each congregation, the elders and brethten) into this jurisdiction of a common presbytery of several congregations, doth thereby in like manner swallow up, not only the interests of the people, but even the vote of the elders of that congregation concerned in the major part thereof. Neither let it seem arrogance in us, but a testimony rather to the truth, further to remonstrate, that this very boundary platform and disposement of church power, as here it is (we speak

for the substance of it) set out and stated; as also that the tenure and exercise thereof in all these subjects, should be immediate from Christ unto them all, is not new unto our thoughts; yea it is no other than what our own apprehensions have been moulded unto long since: and this many of our friends

and some that are of a differing opinion having known our 5 [An Ahologeticall Narration (1643), the manifesto signed by the five dissenting members of the Westminster Assembly: Thomas Goodwin, Philip Nye, Sidrach Simpson, Jeremiah Burroughes, and William Bridge. It was their appeal beyond the Assembly, where they were vastly outnumbered, to Parliament and to the English people that the English church should not pattern itself on the Scottish model but should make allowance for independent congregations. ]

78 JOHN COTTON private judgments long, as likewise our own notes and transcripts written long ago, can testify; besides many public professions since as occasion hath been offered: insomuch as when

we frst read this of this learned author (knowing what hath been the more general current both of the practise and judgment

of our brethren for the Congregational way) we confess we were filled with wonderment at the divine hand, that had thus led the judgments (without the least mutual interchange or intimation of thoughts or notions in these particulars) of our brethren there, and ourselves (unworthy to be mentioned with them) here. Only we crave leave of the reverend author and those brethren that had the view of it, to declare that we assent not to all expressions scattered up and down, or all and every assertion interwoven in it; yea nor to all the grounds or allegations of Scriptures; nor should we in all things perhaps have used the same terms to express the same materials by, For instance, we humbly conceive prophecying (as the Scripture terms it) or speaking to the edification of the whole church, may (sometimes) be performed by brethren gifted, though not in office as elders of the church; only 1. occasionally, not in ordinary course; 2. by men of such abilities as are fit for office; and 3. not assuming this of themselves, but judged such by those

that have the power, and so allowed and designed to it; and 4. 50 as thew doctrine be subjected (for the judging of it) in an especial manner to the teaching elders of that church: and when it 1s thus cautioned, we see no more incongruity for such to speak to a point of divinity in a congregation, than for men of like

abilities to speak to, and debate of matters of religion in an assembly of divines, which this reverend author allows; and here, with us, is practised.

Again, in all humility, we yet see not that assembly of apostles, elders, and brethren, Acts xv, to have been a formal

THE KEYS 79 synod, of messengers, sent, out of a set and combined association

from neighbor churches; but an assembly of the church of Jersualem and of the messengers from the church of Antioch alone; that were far remote each from other, and electively now met: nor are we for the present convinced that the apostles to the end to make this a precedent of such a formal synod, did act therein as ordinary elders, and not out of apostolical guidance and assistance; but we rather conceive (if we would simply consider the mutual aspects which these two churches and their elders stood in this conjunction, abstracting from them that influence and impression which (that superior sphere) the apostles who were then present had in this transaction) this to have been a consultation (as the learned author doth also acknowled ge it to

have been in its fist original, only rising up to be a general council by the apostles’ presence, they being elders of all the churches); or if you will, a reference by way of arbitration for

deciding of this great controversy risen amongst them at Antioch, which they found to be too difficult for themselves; and

so to be a warrant indeed for all such ways of communion between all, or any, especially neighbor churches; and upon like occasions to be ordinances furnished with ministerial power for such ends and purposes. Our reasons for this, we are now many ways bound up from giving the accompt of, in this way, and at this season; but however if it should have been so intended as the learned author judgeth, and the apostles to have acted therein as ordinary elders, yet the lines of their proportion of power that could be drawn from that pattern would extend no further than a ministerial doctrinal power etc. in such assemblies, which we willingly grant. And it may be observed with what a wary eye and exact aim he takes the latitude and elevation of that power there held forth, not daring to attribute the least, either for kind

or degree, than what the example warrants, which was at

80 JOHN COTTON utmost but a doctrinal discernment both of the truth of that controversy they were consulted in; as also the matter of fact in those that had taught the contrary, as beliers of them and subverters of the faith; without so much as brandishing the sword

and power of excommunication, against those high and gross delinquents, or others, that should not obey them by that espistle.

Only in the last place for the further clearing the difference

of the peoples’ interest (which the reverend author usually calleth liberty, sometimes power) and the elders’ rule and authority (which makes that first distribution of church power in particular congregations) as likewise for the illustration of that other allotment of ministerial doctrinal power in an association or communion of churches as severed from the power of excommunication (which is the second). We take the boldness to cast a weak beam of our dim light upon either of these; and to present how these have lain stated in our thoughts, to this end that we may haply prevent some reader's mistake, especially

about the former. For the fist, we conceive the elders and brethren in each congregation, as they are usually in the New Testament thus mentioned distinctly apart, and this when their meeting together is spoken of, so they make in each congregatzon two distinct interests (though meeting in one assembly) as the interest of the common council or body of the people, in some corporations, 7s dzstinct from that of the company of aldermen; so as without the consent ana concurrence of both nothing is esteemed as a church act. But so as in this company of elders, thzs power is properly authority; but in the people is a privilege or power. An apparent difference between these two is evident to us by this. That two or three or more select persons should be put into an office and be trusted with an entire interest or power for a multitude, to which that multitude ought (by a

command from Christ) to be subject and obedient as to an

THE KEYS 81 orainance to guide them in their consent, and in whose sentence the ultimate formal ministerial act of binding or loosing should consist: this power must needs be esteemed and acknowledged in these few to have the proper notion and character of authority,

in comparison of that power (which must yet concur with theiws) that is in a whole body or multitude of men, who have a greater and nearer interest and concernment in those affairs, over Which the few are set as rulers, This difference of power, doth easily appear in comparing the several interest of father and child, in his disposement of her in marriage, and her concurrence with him therein, (although we intend not the parallel between the things themselves.) A virgin daughter bath a power truly and properly so called, yea and a power ulitmately to dissent upon an unsatisfied dislike, yea and it must be an act of her consent, that maketh the marriage valid: but yet for her parents to have a power to guide her in her choice (which she ought in duty to obey) and a power which must also concur to bestow her, or the marviage is invalid, this (comparing her interest (wherein she is more nearly and intimately concerned) with theirs) doth arise to the notion of an extrinsical authority, whereas that power which is in her, is but simply the power of her own act, in which her own concernment doth interest her free by an intrinsical right. The like difference would appear if we had seen a government tempered of an aristocracy and democracy; in which, suppose the people have a shave, and their actual consent is necessary to all laws and sentences, whereas a few nobles that are set over them (whose concernment 1s less general) in whom the formal sanction of all should lie, in these it were rule and authority, in that multitude but power and interest; and such an authority is to be given to a presbytery of elders in a particular congregation, or else (as we have long since been resolved) all that is said in the New Testa-

82 JOHN COTTON ment about their rule, and of the peoples’ obedience to them, is to be looked upon but as metaphors, and to hold no proportion with any substantial reality of rule and government. And in this distribution of power, Christ hath had a suitable and due regard unto the estate and condition of his church; as now under the New Testament, He hath qualified and dignified

it. Under the Old Testament, it was in its infancy, but it is comparatively come forth of its nonage, and grown up to a viper

age (both as the tenure of the covenant of grace in difference from the old, runs in the prophets, and as Paul to the Galatians expresseth it). They are therefore more generally able, if visible saints (which is to be the subject matter of churches under the New Testament) to join with their guides and leaders in judging and discerning what concern thew own and their brethren’s consciences; ana therefore Christ hath not now lodged the sole power of all church matters solely and entirely in the churches’ tutors amd governors as of old when it was under age He did: but yet because of their weakness and unskillfulness (for the

generality of them) in comparison to those who He hath ascended to give gifts unto, on purpose for their guidance and the government of them; He hath therefore placed a rule and authority in the officers over them, not directing only but bind-

ing: so as not only nothing (in an ordinary way of church government) should be done without them, but not esteemed validly done unless done by them. And thus by means of this due and golden balancing and poising of power and interest, authority and privilege, in elders and the brethren, this government might neither degenerate into lordliness and oppression in rulers over the flock, as not having all power in their hands alone; nor yet into anarchy and confusion in the flock among themselves; and so as all things belonging to men’s consciences might be, transacted to common edification and satisfaction.

THE KEYS 83 For the second, let it not seem a paradox that a ministerial doctrinal authority should be found severed from that power of excommunication, to second it, if not obeyed. Every minister and pastor hath in himself, alone, a ministerial doctrinal authority over the whole church that is his charge, and every person in

it, to instruct, rebuke, exhort with all authority: by reason of which those under him are bound to obey him in the Lord, not only vi materiz by virtue of the matter of the commands, in that they are the commands of Christ (for so he should speak with no more authority than any other man, yea a child, who speak-

ing a truth out of the word, should \ead us, as the prophet speaks;) but further, by reason of that ministerial authority which Christ hath endowed him withal, he is to be looked at by them as an ordinance of his, and over them and towards them: and yet he alone hath the authority of excommunication in him, to enforce his doctrine if any do gainsay it: neither therefore is

this authority (as in him considered) to be judged vain and fruitless and ineffectual, to draw men to obedience.

Neither let it seem strange, that the power of the censure, of cutting men off, and delivering them to Satan (in which the positive part (and indeed the controversy betwixt us and others) of excommunication /ies) should be inseparably linked by Christ unto a particular congregation, as the proper native privilege hereof, so as that no assembly or company of elders justly presumed and granted to be more wise and judicious should assume it to themselves, or sever the formal power thereof from the

particular congregations. For though it be hard to give the reason of Christ's institutions,’ yet there is usually in the ways of humane wisdom and reason something analogous thereunto, which may serve to illustrate, rf not to justify this dispersion of interests: and so (zf we mistake not) there may be found even 6 [Comma for the period in the original.]

84 JOHN COTTON of this in the wisdom of our ancestors, in the constitutions of this kingdom. The sentencing to death of any subject in the kingdom,

as it is the highest civil punishment, so of all other the nearest and exactest parallel to this in spirituals, of cutting a soul off and delivering it to Satan; yet the power of this high judgment 2s not put into the hands of an assembly of lawyers only, no not of all the judges themselves, men selected for wisdom, faithfulness, and gravity, who are yet by office designed to have an interest herein; but when they upon any special cause or difficulty, for council and direction in such judgments do all meet (as sometimes they do): yet they have not power to pronounce this sentence of death upon any man without the concurrence of a jury of his peers, which are of his own rank; and in corporations, of such as are inhabitants of the same place: and with a jury of these (men of themselves not supposed to be so skillful in the laws, etc.) two judges, yea one, with other justices on the bench hath power to adjudge and pronounce that which all of them, and all the lawyers in this kingdom together, have not without a jury. Ana we of this nation use to admire the care and wisdom of our ancestors herein, and do esteem this privilege of the subjects in that particular (peculiar to our nation) as one of the glories of our laws, and do make boast of it as such a

liberty and security to each person’s life, as (we think) no nation about us can show the like. And what should be the reason of such a constitution but this (which in the beginning we insisted on) the dispersion of power into several hands, which in capital matters, every man’s trial should run through, whereof the one should have the tie of like common interest to oblige them unto faithfulness; as the other should have skill and wisdom to guide them ana direct therein. And besides that interest that is in any kind of association, fraternity, yea or neighborhood, or likewise, that which is from

THE KEYS 85 the common case of men alike subjected 10 an authority set over them to sentence them, there is also the special advantage of an exact knowledge of the fact in the heinous circumstances thereof, yea, and (in these cases) of the ordinary conversation of the person offending.

We need not enlarge in the application of this: although a greater assembly of elders are to be reverenced as more wise and

able than a few elders with their single congregations, and accordingly may have an higher doctrinal power, (a power properly, and peculiarly suited to their abilities) in cases of difficulty, to determine and direct congregations in thew way, yet Christ hath not betrusted them with that power He hath done the congregations; because they are abstracted from the people: and so one tribe of men concerned in all the forementionea respects is wanting, which Christ would have personally concurring, not by delegation or representation alone, not to the execution only, but even to the legal sentence also of cutting men off, as in the former parallel and instance may be observed.

Yea, and the higher and the greater the association of the presbyteries are, the further ave they removed from the people,

and although you might have thereby a greater help, in that judicial knowledge of the tule, to be proceeded by: yet they are in a further distance (and disenabled thereby) from that precise practique knowledge of the fact and frame of spirit zn tine person transgressing. And cases may be as truly difficult and hard to be decided from obscurity and want of light into the circumstantiation of the fact, and person: in which it was committed, and by him obstinately persisted in; as the law itself. Other considerations of like weight might here be added, if not for the proof (which we do not here intend) yet the clearing of this particular ; as also to demonstrate that that other way of proceeding by withdrawing communion 75 most suttable to the

86 JOHN COTTON relation, that by Christ’s endowment all churches stand in one towards another, yea and wherein the least (being a body to Christ) doth stand unto all: but we should too much exceed the bounds of an epistle, and too long detain the veader from the fruitful and pregnant labors of the worthy author. The God of peace and truth, sanctify all the truth in it, to all those holy ends (and through his grace much more) which the holy and peacable spirit of the author did intend.

THO. GOODWIN PHILIP NYE

CHAPTER I What the keys of the kingdom of heaven be, and what their power The keys of the kingdom of heaven are promised by the Lord

Jesus (the head and king of his church) unto Peter, Matt. xvi, 19. To thee (saith Christ) will I give the keys of the kingdom of Heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound

in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven. The words being allegorical, are therefore somewhat obscure: and holding forth honor and power in the church, are therefore controversial; for where there is no honor (nor pride to pursue it) there is no contention.* It will not therefore be amiss, for opening of the doctrine of the power of the keys; somewhat to open the words of this text, whereon that power is built. Five words require a little clearing. 1. What is here meant by the kingdom of heaven?

2. What are the keys of this kingdom, and the giving of them ?

3. What are the acts of these keys, which are said to be binding and loosing?

4, What is the object of these acts to be bound or loosed, here put under a general name, whatsoever ? 5. Who is the subject recipient of this power, or to whom is this power given? To thee will I give the keys, etc. 1. For the first: by the kingdom of heaven is here meant both the kingdom of grace, which is the church; and the kingdom of 4 Prov. xv,1.

88 JOHN COTTON glory, which is in the highest heavens: for Christ giving to Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven, conveyeth therewith not only this power to bind on earth (that is, in the church on earth; for He gave him no power at all to bind in the world: the kingdom of Christ is not of this world:) but He gives him

also this privilege; that what be bound on earth, should be bound in heaven. And heaven being distinguished from the church on earth, must needs be meant the kingdom of glory. 2. For the second: what the keys of the kingdom of heaven be?

The keys of the kingdom are the ordinances which Christ hath instituted, to be administered in his church; as the preaching of the word, (which is the opening and applying of it) also the administering of the seals and censures: for by the opening and applying of these, both the gates of the church here, and of heaven hereafter, are opened or shut to the sons of men.

And the giving of these keys, implieth, that Christ investeth those to whom He giveth them, with a power to open, and shut the gates of both. And this power lieth partly in their spiritual calling (whether it be their office, or their place and order in the church: ) and partly in the concourse and cooperation of the Spirit of Christ, accompanying the right dispensation of these keys; that is, of these ordinances according to his will. Moreover, these keys are neither sword nor scepter; no sword, for they convey not civil power of bodily life and death: nor scepter, for they convey not sovereign or legislative power over the church, but stewardly and ministerial. As the key of the house of David was given to Hilkiah, Isai. xxii, 22, who succeeded Shebna in his office; and his office was N12 %Y over the house, ver. 15, and the same word over the house, is translated steward in the house, Gen. xliii, 19.

THE KEYS 89 3. Touching the third thing, what are the acts of these keys? The acts of these keys, are said here to be binding and loosing, which are not the proper acts of material keys; for their acts be opening and shutting, which argueth the keys here spoken of be not material keys, but metaphorical; and yet being keys; they have a power also of opening and shutting: for Christ who hath the sovereign power of these keys, He is said to have the key of David, to open, and no man to shut; to shut, and no man to open, Rev. iii, 7, which implieth, that these keys of Christ’s kingdom, have such a power of opening and shutting, as that they do thereby, bind and loose, retain and remit; in opening, they loose, and remit; in shutting they bind, and retain: which will more appear in opening the fourth point. 4. The fourth point then is, what is the subject to be bound and loosed? The text in Matt. xvi, 9, saith, whatsoever, which reacheth not

(so far as the papists would stretch it) to whatsoever oaths, or covenants, or contracts, or counsels, or laws; as if whatsoever oaths of allegiance, covenants of lease or marriage, etc. the Pope ratifieth or dissolveth on earth, should be ratified or dis-

solved in heaven: no, this is not the key of the kingdom of heaven, but the key of the bottomless pit, Rev. ix, 1. But this word whatsoever, is here put in the neuter gender, (not in the masculine, whomsoever) to imply both things and persons; things, as sins; persons, as those that commit them. For so when

our Saviour speaketh of the same acts of the same keys, John xx, 21, He explaineth himself thus: Whose sins soever ye remit, they are remitted, and whose sims soever ye retaim, they are retained. WWhatsoever you bind on earth, is as much therefore, as whose sins soever you retain on earth; and whatsoever you loose on earth, is as much as whose sins soever you loose on earth.

90 JOHN COTTON Now this binding and loosing of whatsoever sins, in whosever

commit them, is partly in the conscience of the sinner, and partly in his outward estate in the church, which is wont to be expressed in other terms, either in foro interiori, or in foro exteriort.” As when in the dispensation of the ordinances of God,

a sinner 1s convinced to lie under the guilt of sin, then his sin is retained, his conscience is bound under the guilt of it, and himself bound under some church-censure, according to the quality and desert of his offense; and if his sin be the more heinous, himself is shut out from the communion of the church; but when a sinner repenteth of his sin, and confesseth it before the Lord, and (if it be known) before his people also, and then in the ministry of the doctrine and discipline of the Gospel, his sin is remitted, and his conscience loosed from the guilt of it, and himself hath open and free entrance, both unto the promise of the Gospel, and into the gates of the holy communion of the church.

5. The fifth point to be explained, is, to whom is this power of the keys given? The text saith, to thee Simon Peter, the son of Jonah, whom Christ blesseth, and pronounceth blessed upon his holy confession of Christ, the Son of the living God, and upon the same occasion promiseth both to use him and his confession, as an instrument to lay the foundation of his church;

and also to give him the keys of his church, for the well ordering and governing of it. But it hath proved a busy question,

how Peter is to be considered in receiving this power of the keys, whether as an apostle, or as an elder, (for an elder also he was, I Pet. v, 1) or as a believer professing his faith before the Lord Jesus, and his fellow brethren. Now because we are as

well studious of peace, as of truth, we will not lean to one of these interpretations, more than to another. Take any of them, 7 [In the inner forum or in the outer forum.]

THE KEYS 91 it will not hinder our purpose in this ensuing discourse, though (to speak ingenuously and without offense what we conceive) the sense of the words will be most full, if all the several considerations be taken jointly together. Take Peter considered not only as an apostle, but an elder also, yea, and a believer too, professing his faith, all may well stand together. For there 1s a different power given to all these, to an apostle, to an elder, to a believer, and Peter was all these, and received all the power,

which was given by Christ to any of these, or to all of these together. For as the Father sent Christ, so Christ sent Peter (as well as any Apostle) cum amplitudine, et plenitudine potestatis,8 (so far as either any church-officer, or the whole church itself, was capable of it), John xx, 21. So that Austin did not mistake when he said Peter received the keys in the name of the church. Nevertheless, we from this place in Matt. xvi, 19. will

challenge no further power, either to the presbytery, or to the fraternity of the Church, than is more expressly granted to them in other Scriptures. Now in other Scriptures it appeareth; first, that Christ gave the power of retaining or remitting of sins (that is, the power of binding and loosing, the whole power of the keys) to all the apostles as well as to Peter, John xx, 21,23. Secondly, it appeareth also that the apostles commended the tule and government of every particular church to the elders (the presbytery) of that church, Heb. xiii, 17; I Tim. v, 17. And

therefore Christ gave the power of the keys to them also. Thirdly, it appeareth farther that Christ gave the power of the keys to the body likewise of the church, even to the fraternity with the presbytery. For the Lord Jesus communicateth the power of binding and loosing, to the apostles, or elders, together with the whole church, when they are met in his name, and agree

together in the censure of an offender, Matt. xviii, 17,18. If 8 [With greatness and abundance of power.]

92 JOHN COTTON an offender (saith He) neglect to hear the church, let him be to thee as an heathen or a publican, that is, let him be excommunicated. Which censure administered by them, with the whole church, He ratifieth with this promise of the power of the keys, Verily, I say unto you, whatsoever you shall bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever you shall loose on earth, Shall be loosed in heaven. In which place, howsoever there be some difference between classical and congregational divines, what should be meant by the church (tell the church) whether the presbytery or the congregation: yet all agree in this (and it is agreement in the truth, which we seek for) that no offender is to be excommunicated, but with some concurse of the congregation, at least by way 1. Of consent to the sentence. 2. Of actual execution of it by withdrawing themselves from the offender so convicted and censured. Now this consent and concurse of the congregation, which is requisite to the power and validity of the censure, we conceive is some part of the exercise of the power of the keys. So that when Christ said to Peter, To thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven: if Peter then received the whole power of the keys, then he stood in the room and name of all such, as have received any part of the power of the keys, whether apostles, or elders, or churches. Or if he stood in the room of an

apostle only, yet that hindereth not, but that as he there received the power of an apostle, so the rest of the apostles received the same power, either there or elsewhere: and the presbytery of each church received, if not there, yet elsewhere, the power belonging to their office: and in like sort each church ot congregation of professed believers, received that portion also of church power which belonged to them.

THE KEYS 93 CHAPTER II Of the distribution of the keys, and their power, or of the several sorts thereof The ordinary distribution of the keys is wont to be thus de-

. _ ) 1. Scientia, A key of knowledge, anda livered. There is ais 2. Potestatis, key of power: and the _ ) 1. Ordinis, Either a key of order, or a key of key of power is ! 2. Jurisdictionis, Jurisdiction. This distribution though it go for current both among Protestants and Papists, yet we crave leave to express, what in it doth not fully satisfy us. Four things in it seem defective to us: 1. that any key of the kingdom of heaven should be left without

power. For here in this distribution, the key of knowledge is contradistinguished from a key of power.

2. There is a real defect in omitting an integral part of the keys, which is the key of church liberty. But no marvel, though the popish clergy omitted it, who have oppressed all church liberty: and Protestant churches, having recovered the liberty of preaching the Gospel, and ministry of the sacraments, some of

them have looked no farther, nor so much as discerned their defect of church liberty in point of discipline: and others finding

themselves wronged in withholding a key or power, which belongs to them, have wrested to themselves an undue power, which belongs not to them, the key of authority.

3. There is another defect in the distribution, in dividing the key of order from the key of jurisdiction: of purpose to make way for the power of chancellors and commissaries i foro exteriori: who though they want the key of order (having never entered into holy orders, as they are called, or at most into the order of deacons only, whereof our Lord spake nothing

94 JOHN COTTON touching jurisdiction) yet they have been invested with jurisdiction, yea, and more than ministerial authority, even above those

elders who labor in word and doctrine: by this sacrilegious breach of order (which hath been as it were the breaking of the

files and ranks in an army) Satan hath routed and ruined a great part of the liberty and purity of churches, and of all the ordinances of Christ in them.

4. A fourth defect (but yet the least, which we observe in this distribution) is, that order is appropriated to the officers of

the church only. For though we be far from allowing that sacrilegious usurpation of the minister’s office, which we hear

of (to our grief) to be practised in some places, that private Christians ordinarily take upon them to preach the Gospel publicly, and to minister sacraments: yet we put a difference between office and order. Office we look at as peculiar to those, who are

set apart for some peculiar function in the church, who are either elders or deacons. But order (speaking of church order properly taken) is common to all the members of the church, whether officers or private brethren. There is an order as well in

them that are subject, as in them that rule. There is a Ta&tc

as well Tév trotaxtixdv, as tév émitaxtixév, The maid in Athenaeus is said Oepanaivys tatlv émtdBovoa, as well as her mistress.® Yet if any man be willing to make office and order equipollent, we will not contend about words, so there be no erroneous apprehension wrapped into the matter. To come therefore to such a distribution of the keys as is more suitable to Scripture phrase. For it becomes true Israelites rather to speak the language of Canaan, than the language of Ashdod. When Paul beheld, and rejoiced to behold, how the church of ® [There is an order as well of those who come second as of the ones in command. The maid in Athenaeus is said to be occupying the position of a female slave .. .]

THE KEYS 99 Colosse had received the Lord Jesus, and walked in Him; he summeth up all their church estate, to wit, their beauty and power, in these two, faith and order, Col. ii, 5, 6. There is therefore a key of faith, and a key of order. The key of faith, is the same which the Lord Jesus calleth the key of knowledge, Luke xi, 52, and which he complaineth, the

lawyers had taken away. Now that key of knowledge Christ speaketh of, was such, that if it had not been taken away, they that had it, had power by it to enter the kingdom of heaven themselves, and it may be to open the door to others, to enter also. Now such a knowledge, whereby a man hath power to enter into heaven, is only faith, which is often therefore called knowledge, as Isai. liii, 11. By the knowledge of him shalt my righteous servant justify many: that is, by the faith of Christ. And John xvii, 3. This is eternal life to know thee: that 1s, to believe on thee. This key therefore, the key of knowledge, (saving knowledge) or which is all one, the key of faith, is common to all believers. A faithful soul knowing the Scriptures, and Christ in them, receiveth Christ, and entereth through Him

into the kingdom of heaven, both here, and hereafter. Here he entereth into a state of grace through faith: and by the profession of his faith, he entereth also into the fellowship of the church (which is the kingdom of heaven upon earth:) and by the same faith, as he believeth to justification, so he maketh confession to salvation, which is perfected in the kingdom of glory, Rom. x, 10. The key of order is the power whereby every member of the church walketh orderly himself, according to his place in the church, and helpeth his brethren, to walk orderly also. It was that which the apostles and elders called upon Paul, so to carry himself before the Jews in the temple, that he might make it appear to all men that he walked orderly, Acts xxi, 18,

96 JOHN COTTON 24. Orderly, to wit, according to the orders of the Jewish church,

with whom he then conversed. And it was the commandment which Paul gave to the whole church of Thessalonica, and to all the members of it, to withdraw themselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, 2 Thes. iii, 6. This their withdrawing from him that walked disorderly, was the exercise of their key of order. And it was a like exercise of the same key of order, when he requireth the brethren to warn the unruly, which is, (in the original) the same word, to admonish the disorderly, 1 Thes. v, 14. And this key of order (to wit, order understood in this sense) is common to all the members of the church, whether elders or brethren.

Furthermore, of order there be two keys: a key of power, or interest: and the key of authority or rule. The first of these is termed in the Scriptures, /zberty: so distinguishing it from that part of rule and authority in the officers of the church. We speak not here of that spiritual liberty, whether of zmpunity, whereby the children of God are set free by the blood of Christ from Satan, hell, bondage of sin, curse of the moral law, and service of the ceremonial law: nor of zmmunity whereby we have power to be called the sons of God, to come boldly unto the throne of grace in prayer, and as heirs of glory, to look for our inheritance in light: but of that external liberty, ot interest which Christ also

hath purchased for his people, as liberty to enter into the fellowship of his church, liberty to choose and call well gifted men to office in that his church: liberty to partake in sacraments, or seals of the covenant of the church, liberty and interest to join with officers in the due censure of offenders, and the like. This liberty and the acts thereof, are often exemplified in the Acts of the apostles: and the apostle Paul calleth it expressly by the name of liberty. Brethren (saith he) you have been called unto LIBERTY, only use not your liberty as an occasion to the

THE KEYS 97 flesh, but by love serve one another. Gal. v, 13, that the apostle

by that liberty meaneth church liberty or power in ordering church affairs, will evidently appear, if we consult with the context, rather than with commenters. For the apostle having spent the former part of the epistle, partly in the confirmation of his calling, partly in disputation against justification by the works of

the law, to the end of ver. 8 of chap. 5 in the ninth verse he descendeth not to exhort unto bones mores’ in general, (as usually commenters take it) but to instruct in church discipline,

in which he giveth three or four directions to the tenth ver. of chap. 6.

1. Touching the censure of those corrupt teachers, who had

perverted and troubled them with that corrupt doctrine of justification by works, chap. 5, ver. 9. to the end of the chapter. 2. Touching the gentle admonition and restoring of a brother fallen by infirmity, chap. 6, ver. 1 to 5.

3. Touching the maintenance of their ministers, ver. 6,7,8 and beneficence to others, ver. 9, 10. Touching the first, the censure of their corrupt teachers. 1. He

layeth for the ground of it (that which himself gave for the eround of the excommunication of the incestuous Corinth, | Cor. v, 6.) A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. ver. 9. 2. He presumeth the church will be of the same mind with him, and concur in the censure of him that troubled them with corrupt doctrine, ver. 10. (from fellowship with which corrupt doctrine he cleareth himself, ver. 11). 3. He proceedeth to declare, what

censure he wisheth might be dispensed against him, and the rest of those corrupt teachers. I would (saith he) they were even cut off that trouble you: cut off, to wit, by excommunication, ver. 12. Now lest it should be objected by the brethren of the church: but what power have we to cut them off ? The apostle answereth, 10 [Good conduct.]

98 JOHN COTTON they have a power and liberty (to wit, to join with the sounder part of the presbytery, in casting them out, or cutting them off:) For brethren (saith he) you are called unto liberty. If it should be further objected, yea, but give the people this power and liberty in some cases, either to cast off their teachers, or to cut them off, the people will soon take advantage to abuse this liberty unto much carnal licentiousness. The apostle preventeth that with a word of wholesome counsel: Brethren (saith he) you have been called unto liberty: only use not your liberty as an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another, vet. 13, and thereupon seasonably pursueth this counsel with a caveat to beware of abusing this liberty to carnal contention, (an usual disease of popular liberty) and withal dehorteth them from all other fruits of the flesh, to the end of the chapter. Evident therefore it is, that there is a key of power or liberty given to the church (to the brethren with the elders) as to open a door of entrance to the minister’s calling: so to shut the door of entrance against them in some cases, as when through corrupt and pernicious doctrine, they turn from shepherds to become ravenous wolves.

Having spoken then of that first key of order, namely, the key of power, (in a more large sense) or liberty in the church, there remaineth the other key of order, which is the key of authority ot of rule, in a mote strict sense, which is in the elders of the church. Authority is a moral power, in a superior order (ot state) binding or releasing an inferior in point of subjection. This key when it was promised to Peter, Matt. xvi, 19, and given to him with the rest of the apostles, John xx, 23. they thereby had power to bind and loose: and it is the same authority which is given to their successors the elders whereby they

THE KEYS D9 are called to feed and rule the church of God, as the apostles had done before them, Act xx, 28. And indeed by opening and applying the law (the spirit of bondage accompanying the same) they bind sinners under the curse, and their consciences under guilt of sin, and fear of wrath, and shut the kingdom of heaven against them. And by opening and applying the Gospel (the spirit of adoption accompanying same) they remit sin, and loose the consciences of believing repenting souls from guilt of sin, and open to them the doors of heaven. By virtue of this key,

as they preach with all authority, not only the doctrine of the law, but also the covenant of the Gospel; so they administer the seals thereof, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. By virtue also of this key, they with the church do bind an obstinate offender under excommunication, Matt. xviii, 17,18 and release, and forgive him his repentance, 2 Cor. 1, 7. This distribution of the keys, and so of spiritual power, in the things of Christ’s kingdom we have received from the Scripture. But if any men out of love to antiquity, do rather affect to keep to the terms of the former more ancient distribution (as there be who are as loath to change: antiquos terminos verborum, as agrorum)** we would not stick upon the words rightly explained, out of desire both to judge and speak the same things with follow brethren. Only then let them allow some spiritual power to the key of knowledge, though not church power. And in church power let them put in as well a key of liberty, that is, a power and privilege of interest, as a key of authority. And by their key of order, as they do understand the key of office, so let them not divide from it the key of jurisdiction (for Christ hath given no jurisdiction, but to whom He hath given office) and so we willingly consent with them. 11 [The ancient terms as the ancient boundaries of the fields.]

100 JOHN COTTON CHAPTER III Of the subject of the power of the keys, to whom they are committed: and first of the key of knowledge, and order As the keys of the kingdom of heaven be divers, so are the subjects to whom they are committed, divers: as in the natural body, diversity of functions belongeth to diversity of members. 1. The key of knowledge (or which is all one, the key of faith) belongeth to all the faithful, whether joined to any particular church or no. As in the primitive times, men of grown years were first called and converted to the faith, before they wete received into the church: and even now an Indian or pagan may not be received into the church, till he have first received the faith, and have made profession of it before the Lord, and the church: which argueth, that the key of knowledge is given not only to the church, but to some before they enter into the church. And yet to Christians for the church’s sake: that they who receive this grace of faith, by it may receive Christ and his benefits, and therewith may receive also this privilege, to find an

open door set before them, to enter into the fellowship of the church.

2. The ey of order (speaking as we do of church order, as Paul doth, Col. ii, 5) belongeth to all such, who are in church order, whether e/ders or brethren. For though elders be in a superior order, by reason of their office, yet the brethren (over whom the elders are made overseers and rulers) they stand also in an order, even in orderly subjection, according to the order of the Gospel. It is true, every faithful soul that hath received a key of knowledge, is bound to watch over his neighbor’s soul,

as his own, and to admonish him of his sin, unless he be a

THE KEYS 101 scornet: but this he doth, Non ratione ordinis, sed intuitu charitatis: not by virtue of a state of order which he is in (till in church fellowship) but as of common Christian love and charity. But every faithful Christian who standeth in church otder is bound to do the same, as well respectu ordinis, as intuitu

charitatis, by vittue of that royal law, not only of love, but of church order, Matt. xviii, 15,16,17, whereby if his brother who offended him, do not hearken to his conviction and admonition, he is then according to order, to proceed further, taking one or two with him: and if the offender refuse to hear them also, then

he is by order to tell the church, and afterwards walk towards him, as God shall direct the church to order it.

CHAPTER IV Of the subject to whom the key of church privilege,

power, or liberty is given This key is given to the brethren of the church: for so saith the apostle, in Gal. v, 13 (in the place quoted and opened before) Brethren, you have been called to liberty. And indeed, as it is the ed elvat, eveEla and etmpakia of a com-

monwealth, the right and due establishment and balancing of the /iberties os privileges of the people (which is in a true sense, may be called a power) and the authority of the magistrate: so it is the safety of church estate, the right and due settling and ordering of the holy power of the privileges and liberties of the brethren, and the ministerial authority of the elders. The Gospel alloweth no church authority (or rule properly so called) to the brethren, but reserveth that wholly to the elders; and yet pre-

venteth the tyranny and oligarchy, and exorbitancy of the elders, by the large and firm establishment of the liberties of the brethren, which ariseth to a power in them. Bucet’s axiom is here

102 JOHN COTTON notable; Potestas penes omnem Ecclesiam est; Authoritas ministeriz penes Presbyteros et Episcopos.’* In Matt. xvi, 19, where

potestas, or power being contradistinguished from authoritas, authority is nothing else but a liberty or privilege. The liberties of the brethren, or the church consisting of them, are many and great.

1. The church of brethren hath the power, privileges and liberty to choose their officers. In the choice of an apostle into the place of Judas, the people went as far as humane vote and suffrage could go. Out of 120 persons (ver. 15) they chose out, and presented two; out of which two (because an apostle was to be designed immediately by God) God by lot chose one; and yet this one so chosen of God, ovyxateyyndtoén, communibus omnium suffragiis inter duodecim Apostolos allectus est, vet. 26.73 was counted amongst the apostles by the common suffrages of them all. And this place Cyprian presseth amongst others, to confirm the power (that is €Govotav, or privilege, or liberty) of the people, in choosing or refusing their ministers. Plebs Christiana (saith he) vel maxime potestatem habet, vel dignos sacerdotes eligendi, vel indignos recusandi, Epistol. 4, lib. 1. The like, or greater liberty is generally approved by the best

of our divines (studious of reformation) from Acts xiv, 23. They ordained them elders, chosen by lifting up of hands. The same power is clearly expressed in the choice of deacons,

Acts vi, 3,5,6. The apostles did not choose the deacons, but called the multitude together, and said unto them, Brethren, look you out seven men amongst you whom we may appoint 12 [The power belongs to all the church; the authority of the ministry belongs to the elders and the bishops.] 18 [Gr: to be reckoned along with [the others]; Lat: by vote of all present he was elected to be one of the twelve apostles. ]

14 [The Christian people assuredly have the fullest power, either to choose worthy priests or to refuse unworthy ones. ]

THE KEYS 103 over this business: And the saying pleased the whole multitude, and they chose Stephen, etc.

2. It is a privilege, ot a liberty the church hath received, to send forth one or more of their elders, as the public service of Christ and of the church may require. Thus Epaphroditus was a messenger or apostle of the church of Philippi unto Paul, Phil. ii, 25.

3. The brethren of the church have power and liberty of propounding any just exception against such as offer themselves

to be admitted unto their communion, or unto the seals of it: hence Saul, when he offered himself to the communion of the church at Jerusalem was not at first admitted thereto, upon an exception taken against him by the disciples till that exception was removed, Acts ix, 26,27. and Peter did not admit the family of Cornelius to baptism, till he had inquired of the brethren, if any of them had any exception against it, Acts x, 47.

4. As the brethren have a power of order, and the privilege to expostulate with their brethren in case of private scandals, according to the rule, Matt. xviti, 15,16. So in case of public scandal, the whole church of brethren have power and privilege to join with the elders, in inquiring, hearing, judging of public scandals: so as to bind notorious offenders and impenitents under censure, and to forgive the repentant: for when Christ commandeth a brother, in case that offense cannot be healed privately, then to tell the church, Matt. xvili, 17. it necessarily implieth that the church must hear him, and inquire into the offense complained of, and judge of the offense as they find it upon inquiry. When the brethren that were of the circumcision expostulated with Peter about his communion with Cornelius, and his uncircumcised family, Peter did not reject them, and their complaint against him, as transgressing the bounds of their just power and privilege, but readily addressed himself

104 JOHN COTTON to give satisfaction to them all, Acts xi, 2 to 18. The brethren of the Church of Corinth being gathered together with their elders, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and with his power, did deliver the incestuous person to Satan, \ Cor. v, 4,5. And Paul reproveth them all, brethren as well as elders, that they had no sooner put him away from amongst them, ver. 2, and expressly he alloweth to them all power to judge them that are within, ver. 22. Yea, and from thence argueth, in all the saints, even in the meanest of the saints, an ability to judge between brethren, in the things of this life, as those that have received such a spirit of discerning from Christ, by which they shall one day judge the world, even angels, so in the next chapter, the 6, of that I Cor. i, 2,3,4,5. And the same brethren of the same church, as well as the elders, he entreateth to forg7ve the same incestuous Corinthian, upon his repentance, 2 Cor. 11, 7,8.

If it be said, to judge is an act of rule; and to be rulers of the church, is not given to all the brethren, but to the elders only: Ans. All judgment is not an act of authority or rule; for there is a judgment of discretion, by way of privilege, as well as of authority by way of sentence: that of discretion is common to all the brethren, as well as that of authority belongeth to the presbytery of that church. In England, the jury by their verdict, as well as the judge by his sentence, do both of them judge the same malefactor; yet in the jury their verdict is but an act of

their popular liberty: in the judge it is an act of his judicial authority. If it be demanded, what difference is there between these two ?

The answer is ready, great is the difference: for though the jury have given up their judgment and verdict, yet the malefactor is not thereupon legally condemned, much less executed, but upon the sentence of the judge: in like sort here, though the brethren of the church do with one accord give up their vote and

THE KEYS 105 judgment for the censure of an offender, yet he is not thereby censured, till upon the sentence of the presbytery. If it be said again; yea, but it is an act of authority to bind and loose, and the power to bind and loose, Christ gave to the whole church, Matt. xviii, 18.

Ans. The whole church may be said to bind and loose, in that the brethren consent, and concur with the elders, both before the censure in discerning it to be just and equal, and in declaring their discernment, by lifting up of their hands, or by silence: and after the censure, in rejecting the offender censured

from their wonted communion. And yet their discerning or approving of the justice of the censure beforehand, is not a preventing of the elders in their work. For the elders before that have not only privately examined the offender and his offense,

and the proofs thereof, to prepare the matter and ripen it for the church’s cognizance: but do also publicly revise the heads of all the material passages thereof before the church: and do withal declare to the church the counsel and will of God therein,

that they may rightly discern and approve what censure the Lord requireth to be administered in such a case. So that the people’s discerning and approving the justice of the censute before it be administered, ariseth from the elder’s former instruction and direction of them therein: whereunto the people give consent, in obedience to the will and rule of Christ. Hence is that speech of the apostle; We have in readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your OBEDIENCE IS FULFILLED, 2 Cor. x, 6. The apostles’ revenge of disobedience by way of reproof in

preaching, doth not follow the people’s obedience, but proceedeth whether the people obey it or no. It was therefore their revenge of disobedience by way of censure in discipline, which they had in readiness, when the obedience of the church is fulfilled in discerning and approving the equity of the censure,

106 JOHN COTTON which the apostles or elders have declared to them from the word,

This power or privilege of the church in dealing in this sort with a scandalous offender, may not be limited only to a private brother offending, but may reach also to an offensive elder. For (as hath been touched already) it is plain that the brethren of the circumcision, supposing Peter to have given an offense in eating with men uncircumcised, they openly expostulated with him about his offense: and he stood not with them upon terms of his apostleship, much less of his eldership, but willingly submitted himself to give satisfaction to them all, Acts xi, 2 to 18. And Paul writeth to the church of Colosse, to deal with Archippus, warning him to see to the fulfilling of his ministry, Col. iv, 17. And very pregnant is his direction to the Galatians, for their proceeding to the utmost with their corrupt and scandalous false teachers. I would (saith he) they were even cut off that trouble you; and that upon this very ground of their liberty, Gal. v, 12,13, as hath been opened above in Chapter II. But whether the church hath power or liberty for proceeding to the utmost censure of their whole presbytery, is a question of more difficulty.

For 1. it cannot well be conceived that the whole presbytery should be proceeded against, but that by reason of their strong influence into the hearts of many of the brethren, a strong party of the brethren will be ready to side with them: and in case of

finding dissention and opposition, the church ought not to proceed without consulting with the synod. As there arose dissention in the church at Antioch, and SIDING, (or as the word is otdoig) they sent up to the apostles and elders at Jerusalem, who in way of synod determined the business, Acts xv, 2 to 23. A precedent and pattern of due church proceedings in case of

THE KEYS 107 dissention, when some take with one side, some with another. But of that more hereafter. 2. Excommunication is one of the highest acts of rule in the church, and therefore cannot be performed but by some rulers. Now where all the elders are culpable, there be no rulers left in that church to censure them. As therefore the presbytery cannot excommunicate the whole church, (though apostate) for

they must tell the church, and join with the church in that censure: so neither can the church excommunicate the whole presbytery, because they have not received from Christ an office of rule, without their officers.

If it be said, the twenty-four elders (who represent the private members of the church, as the four living creatures do the four officers) had all of them crowns upon their heads, and sat upon thrones, Rev. iv, 4, which are sions of regal authority: the answer is, the crowns and thrones argue them to be kings, no more than their white raiments argue them to be priests, ver. 4, but neither priests nor kings by office, but by liberty to perform like spiritual duties by grace, which the other do by grace and office: as priests they offer up spiritual sacrifices: and as kings they rule their lusts, passions, themselves, and their families, yea, the world and church also after a sort: the world, by improving it to spiritual advantage: and the church, by appointing their own officers, and likewise in censuring their offenders, not only by their officers, (which is as much as kings are wont to do) but also by their own royal assent, which kings are not wont to do, but only in the execution of nobles.

But nevertheless, though the church want authority to excommunicate their presbytery, yet they want not liberty to with-

draw from them: for so Paul instructeth and beseecheth the church of Rome (whom the Holy Ghost foresaw would most

108 JOHN COTTON stand in need of this counsel) to make use of this liberty: J beseech you (saith he) mark such as cause divisions and offenses,

contrary to the DOCTRINE you have received, nal éxxdivate an’ attav, WITHDRAW from them.

So then, by the agitation of this objection, there appear two liberties of the church more to be added to the former. One is this (which is the fifth liberty in members) the church hath liberty in case of dissension amongst themselves to resort to a synod, Acts xv, 1,2. Where also it appeareth the brethren enjoyed this libetry, to dispute their doubts till they were satis-

fied, ver. 7, 12, to join with the apostles and elders in the definitive sentence, and in the promulgation of the same, ver. 22,23.

The sixth liberty of the church is, to withdraw from the communion of those, whom they want authority to excommunicate. For as they set up the presbytery, by professing their sub-

jection to them in the Lord: so they avoid them by professed withdrawing their subjection from them according to God. A seventh and last liberty of the church, is, liberty of communion with other churches. Communion we say: for it is a great liberty, that no particular church standeth in subjection to another particular church, no, not to a cathedral church: but that all the churches enjoy mutual brotherly communion amongst themselves: which communion is mutually exercised amongst them seven ways, which for brevity and memory sake, we sum up in seven words. 1. By way of participation. 2. Of recommendation. 3. Of consultation. 4. Of congregation into a synod. 5. Of contribution. 6. Of admonition. 7. Of propagation or multiplication of churches. 1. By way of participation, the membets of one church, occasionally coming to another church, where the Lord’s Supper

cometh to be administered, are willingly admitted to partake

THE KEYS 109 with them at the Lord’s Supper, in case that neither themselves,

nor the churches from whence they came, do lie under any public offense. For we receive the Lord’s Supper, not only as a seal of our communion with the Lord Jesus, and with his members in our own church, but also in all the churches of the saints.

2. By way of recommendation; letters are sent from one church to another, recommending to their watchfulness and communion, any of their members, who by occasion of business,

are for a time to reside amongst them. As Paul sent letters of

recommendation to the Church of Rome, in the behalf of Phoebe, a deaconess of the church at Cenchrea, Rom. xvi, 1,2. And of these kind of letters he speaketh to the church of Corinth also, though not as needful to himself (who was well known to them) yet for others, 2 Cor. ii, 1. But if a member of one church have just occasion to remove

himself, and his family, to take up his settled habitation in another church, then the letters written by the church in his behalf, do recommend him to their perpetual watchfulness and

communion. And if the other church have no just cause to refuse him, they of his own church do by those letters wholly dismiss him from themselves; whereupon the letters (for distinction sake) are called letters of dismission; which indeed do not differ from the other, but in the durance of the recommendation, the one recommending him for a time, the other for ever.

3. By way of consultation, one church hath liberty of communicating with another to require their judgment and counsel, touching any persons or cause, wherewith they may be better acquainted than themselves. Thus the church of Antioch by their

messengers consulted with the church at Jerusalem, touching the necessity of circumcision, Acts xv, 3, although the consultation brought forth a further effect of communion with churches;

110 JOHN COTTON to wit, their congregation into a synod. Which is the fourth way

of communion of churches: all of the churches have the like liberty of sending their messengers to debate and determine in a synod, such matters as do concern them all; as the church of Antioch sent messengers to Jerusalem for resolution and satis-

faction in a doubt that troubled them: the like liberty by proportion might any other church have taken; yea, many churches together; yea, all the churches in the world, in any case that might concern them all. What authority these synods have received, and may put forth, will come to be considered in the sequel.

A fifth way of communion of churches is, the liberty of giving and receiving mutual supplies and succors one from another. The church of Jerusalem communicated to the churches

of the Gentiles, their spiritual treasures of gifts of grace; and the churches of the Gentiles ministered back again to them, liberal oblations of outward beneficence, Rom. xv, 26,27; Acts xi, 29,30. When the church of Antioch aboundeth with more variety of spiritual gifted men than the state of their own church stood in need of; they fasted and prayed; as for other ends, so for the enlargement of Christ’s kingdom in the improvement of them. And the Holy Ghost opened them a door for the succor of many countries about them, by the sending forth of some of them, Acts xii, 1,2,3. A sixth way of communion of churches is by way of mutual admonition, when a public offense is found amongst any of them: for as Paul had liberty to admonish Peter before the whole church at Antioch, when he saw him walk not with a right

foot (and yet Paul had no authority over Peter, but only both of them had equal mutual interest one in another), Gal. ii, 11 to 14. So by the same proportion, one church hath liberty to

THE KEYS 111 admonish another, though they be both of them of equal authority; seeing one church hath as much interest in another, as one apostle in another. And if by the royal law of love, one brother hath liberty to admonish his brother in the same church, Matt. xviii, 15,16, then by the same rule of brotherly love and

mutual watchfulness one church hath power to admonish another, in faithfulness to the Lord, and unto them. The church in the Canticles took care not only for her own members, but for her little sister, which she thought had no breast, yea, and consulteth with other churches what to do for her, Cant. viit, 8. And would she not then have taken like care, in case their little sister having breasts, her breasts had been distempered, and given corrupt matter instead of milk? A seventh way of communion of churches may be by way of propagation and multiplication of churches: as when a particu-

lar church of Christ shall grow so full of members, as all of them cannot hear the voice of their ministers; then as an hive full of bees swarmeth forth, so is the church occasioned to send

forth a sufficient number of her members, fit to enter into a church state, and to carry along church work amongst themselves. And for that end they either send forth some one or other of their elders with them, or direct them where to procure such to come unto them. The like course is wont to be taken,

when sundry Christians coming over from one country to another; such as ate come over first, and are themselves full of company, direct those that come after them, and assist them in like sort, in the combination of themselves into church order,

according to the rule of the Gospel. Though the apostles be dead, whose office it was to plant and gather and multiply churches; yet the work is not dead, but the same power of the keys is left with the churches in common, and with each par-

112 JOHN COTTON ticular church for her part, according to their measure, to prop-

agate and enlarge the kingdom of Christ (as God shall give Opportunity) throughout all generations.

CHAPTER V Of the subject to whom the key of authority is committed

The key of authority or rule, is committed to the elders of the church, and so the act of rule is made the proper act of their

office. The Elders that rule well, etc., 1 Tim v, 17, Heb. xiii, 7.17.

The special acts of this rule are many. The first and principal is that which the elders who labor in

the word and doctrine, ate chiefly to attend unto, that is, the preaching of the word with all authority, and that which is annexed thereto, the administration of the sacraments or seals. Speak, rebuke and exhort (saith Paul to Titus) with all authoraty, Tit. 11, 15. And that the administration of the seals is annexed thereto, is plain from Matt. xxviii, 19,20. Go (saith Christ to the apostles) make disciples, and baptize them, etc. If it be objected, private members may all of them prophecy publicly, 1 Cor. xiv, 31, and therefore also baptize: and so this act of authority is not peculiar to preaching elders. Ans. 1. The place in the Corinths doth not speak of ordinary private members, but of men furnished with extraordinary gifts.

Kings at the time of their first coronation give many extraordinary large gifts, which they do not daily pour out in like sort in their ordinary government. Christ soon after his ascension poured out a larger measure of his spirit than in times succeeding. The members of the church of Corinth (as of many other in

THE KEYS 113 those primitive times) were enriched with all knowledge, ana in all utterance, 1 Cor. i, 5. And the same persons that had the gift of prophecy in the church of Corinth, had also te gift of tongues, which put upon the apostle a necessity to take them off from their frequent speaking with tongues, by preferring prophecy before it, 1 Cor. xiv, 2 to 24. So that though all they might

prophecy (as having extraordinary gifts for it) yet the like liberty is not allowed to them that want the like gifts. In the church of Israel, none besides the priests and Levites, did ordinarily prophecy, either in the temple, or in the synagogues, unless they were either furnished with extraordinary gifts of

prophecy, (as the prophets of Israel) or were set apart, and trained up, to prepare for such a calling, as the sons of the prophets. When Amos was forbidden by the high priest of Bethel, to prophecy at Bethel, Amos doth not allege nor plead the liberty of any Israelite to prophecy in the holy assemblies, but allegeth only his extraordinary calling, Amos vii, 14, 15. It appeareth also that the sons of the prophets, that is, men set apart, and trained up to prepare for that calling, were allowed the like liberty, 1 Sam. xix, 20. Ans. 2. But neither the sons of the prophets, nor the prophets

themselves, were wont to offer sacrifices in Israel, (except Samuel and Eliah by special direction) nor did the extraordinary prophets in Corinth take upon them to administer sacraments. If any reply, that if the prophets in the church at Corinth had been endued with extraordinary gifts of prophecy, they had not

been subject to the judgment of the prophets, which these are directed to be, 1 Cor. xiv, 22. Ans. It followeth not. For the people of God were to examine all prophecies, by the law and testimony, and not to receive them

but according to that rule, Psal. viii, 20. Yea, and Paul himself

114 JOHN COTTON referreth all his doctrine to the law and prophets, Acts xxvi, 22. And the Bereans are commended for examining Paul’s doctrine according to the Scriptures, Acts xvii, 11,12.

2. A second act of authority common to the elders, is, they have power, as any weighty occasion shall require, to call the church together, as the apostles called the church together for the election of deacons, Acts vi, 2. And in like sort are the priests of the Old Testament stirred up to call a solemn assembly, to gather the elders, and all the inhabitants of the land, to sanctify a fast, Joel i, 13,14. 3. It is an act of their power, to examine, if apostles, then any others (whether officers or members) before they be received of the church, Rev. ii, 2. A fourth act of their rule is, the ordination of officers (whom

the people have chosen) whether elders or deacons, 1 Tim. iv, 14; Acts vi, 6.

5. Itis an act of the key of authority, that the elders open the

door of speech and silence in the assembly. They were the rulers of the synagogue, who sent to Paul and Barnabas to open

their mouths in a word of exhortation, Acts xiii, 15. and it is the same power which calleth men to speak, to put men to silence when they speak amiss. And yet when the elders themselves do lie under offense, or under suspicion of it, the brethren

have liberty to require satisfaction, in a modest manner, concerning any public breach of rule, as hath been mentioned above out of Acts xi, 2,3, etc.

6. It belongeth to the elders to prepare matters beforehand, which are to be transacted by themselves, or others in the face of the congtegation, as the apostles and elders being met at the house of James, gave direction to Paul, how to carry himself, that he might prevent the offense of the church, when he should appear before them, Acts xxi, 28. Hence when the offense of a

THE KEYS 115 brother is (according to the rule in Matt. xviii, 17) to be brought to the church, they are beforehand to consider and inquite whether the offense be really given or no, whether duly proved, and orderly proceeded in by the brethren, according to rule, and not duly satisfied by the offender: lest themselves and the church, be openly cumbered with unnecessary and tedious agitations: but that all things transacted before the church, be

carried along with most expedition and best edification. In which respect they have power to reject causeless and disorderly complaints, as well as to propound and handle just complaints before the congregation. 7. In the handling of an offense before the church, the elders

have authority both Jus dicere, and Sententiam ferre;® when the offense appeareth truly scandalous; the elders have power

from God to inform the church, what the /aw (or rule and will) of Christ is for the censure of such an offense: and when the church discerns the same, and hath no just exception against it, but condescendeth thereto, it is a further act of the elders’ power, to give sentence against the offender. Both these acts of power in the ministers of the Gospel, are foretold by Ezek., xliv, 23,24. They shall teach my people the difference between holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean. And in controversy they shall stand in judgment, and they shall judge it according to my judgment, etc.

8. The elders have power to dismiss the church, with a blessing in the name of the Lord, Num. vi, 23 to 26; Heb. Vil, 7.

9. The elders have received power, to charge any of the people in private, that none of them live either mnordinately without a calling, or zd/y in their calling, or scandalous] y in any sort, 2 Thes. i1.6 and vers. 8,10,11,12. The apostles’ command 15 [To pronounce judgment and to give the sentence. ]

116 JOHN COTTON argueth a power in the elders, to charge these duties upon the people effectually.

10. What power belongeth to the elders in a synod, is more fitly to be spoken to in the chapter of synods. 11. Incase the church should fall away to blasphemy against Christ, and obstinate rejection and persecution of the way of grace, and either no synod to be hoped for, or no help by a synod, the elders have power to withdraw (or separate) the disciples from them, and to carry away the ordinances with them,

and therewithal sadly to denounce the just judgment of God against them, Acts xix, 9; Exod. xxxiii, 7; Mark vi, 11; Luke x, 11; Acts xii, 46. Object. But if elders have all this power to exercise all these acts of rule, partly over the private members, partly over the whole church, how are they then called the servants of the Church? 2 Cot.iv.5. Ans. The elders to be both servants and rulers of the church, may both of them stand well together. For their rule is not lordly, as if they ruled of themselves, or for themselves, but stewardly and ministerial, as ruling the church from Christ, and

also from their call: and withal, ruling the church for Christ; and for the church, even for their spiritual everlasting good. A queen may call her servants, her mariners, to pilot and conduct

her over the sea to such an haven: yet they being called by her to such an office, she must not rule them in steering their course, but submit herself to be ruled by them, till they have brought her to her desired haven. So is the case between the church and her elders.

THE KEYS 117 CHAPTER VI Of the power and authority given to synods Synods we acknowledge, being rightly ordered, as an ordinance of Christ. Of their assembly we find three just causes in Scripture. 1. When a church wanting light or peace at home, desireth the counsel and help of other churches, few or more.

Thus the church of Antioch being annoyed with corrupt teachers, who darkened the light of the truth, and bred no small

dissention amongst them in the church; they sent Paul and Barnabas and other messengers unto the apostles and elders at Jerusalem, for the establishment of truth and peace. In joining the elders to the apostles (and that doubtless by the advice of Paul and Barnabas) it argueth that they sent not to the apostles as extraordinary and infallible, and authentical oracles of God, (for then what need the advice and help of elders?) but as wise and holy guides of the church, who might not only relieve them by some wise counsel, and holy order, but also set a precedent to succeeding ages, how errors and dissentions in churches might be removed and healed. And the course which the apostles and elders took for clearing the matter, was not by publishing the counsel of God with apostolic authority, from immediate revelation, but by searching out the truth in an ordinary way of free disputation, Acts xv, ver. 7, which is as fit a course for imitation in after ages, as it was seasonable for practice then. 2. Just consequences from Scripture giveth us another ground for the assembly of many churches, or of their messengers, into a synod, when any church lieth under scandal, through corruption in doctrine and practice, and will not be healed by more private advertisements of their own members, or of their neighbor ministers, or brethren. For there is a brotherly communion,

118 JOHN COTTON as between the members of the same church, so between the churches. We have a little sister (saith one church to another, Cant. viti, 8) therefore churches have a brotherly communion amongst themselves. Look then as one brother being offended with another, and not able to heal him by the mouth of two or three brethren privately, it behooveth him to carry it to the whole church; so by proportion, if one church see matter of offense in another, and be not able to heal it in a more private way, it will behoove them to procure the assembly of many churches, that the offense may be orderly heard, and judged and removed.

3. It may so fall out, that the state of all the churches in the

country may be corrupted; and beginning to discern their corruption, may desire the concurse and counsel of one another,

for a speedy, and safe, and general reformation. And then so meeting and conferring together, may renew their covenant with God, and conclude and determine upon a course, that may tend to the public healing, and salvation of them all. This was a frequent practice in the Old Testament, in the time of Asa, 2 Cron. xv, 10 to 15, in the time of Hezekiah, 2 Chron. xxix, 4 to 19. In the time of Josiah, 2 Chron. xxxiv, 29 to 33, and in the time of

Ezra, Ezra x, 1 to 5. These and the like examples were not peculiar to the Israelites, as one entire national church: for in that respect they appealed from every synagogue and court in Israel, to the national high priest, and court at Jerusalem, as being all of them subordinate thereunto (and therefore that precedent is usually waived by our best divines, as not appliable

to Christian churches:) but these examples hold forth no superiority in one church or court over another, but all of them in an equal manner, give advice in common, and take one common course for redress of all. And therefore such examples are fit precedents for churches of equal power within themselves, to

THE KEYS 119 assemble together, and take order with one accord, for the reformation of them all. Now a synod being assembled; three questions arise about their power: 1. What is that power they have received? 2. How

far the fraternity concurreth with the presbytery in it; the brotherhood with the eldership? 3. Whether the power they have received reacheth to the enjoining of things, both in their nature, and in their use indifferent? For the first; we dare not say that their power reacheth no farther than giving counsel: for such as their ends be, for which according to God, they do assemble, such is the power given them of God, as may attain those ends. As they meet to minister light and peace to such churches, as through want of light and peace lie in error (or doubt at least) and variance; so they have power by the grace of Christ, not only to give light and counsel in matter of truth and practice; but also to command and enjoin the things to be believed and done. The express words of the synodal letter imply no less; It seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and unto us, to lay upon you no other burthen, Acts xv, 27. This burthen therefore, to observe those necessary things which they speak of, they had power to impose. It is an act of the binding power of the keys, to bind burthens. And this binding power ariseth not only materially from the weight of the matters im-

posed, (which are necessary necessitate praecepti from the word) but also formally, from the authority of the synod, which being an ordinance of Christ, bindeth the more for the synod’s

sake. As a truth of the Gospel taught by a minister of the Gospel, it bindeth to faith and obedience, not only because it is Gospel, but also because it is taught by a minister for his calling’s sake, seeing Christ hath said, W oso receiveth you receiveth me. And seeing also a synod sometime meeteth to convince, and admonish an offending church or presbytery; they have power

120 JOHN COTTON therefore, (if they cannot heal the offenders) to determine to withdraw communion from them, And further, seeing they meet likewise sometimes for general reformation; they have power to decree and publish such ordinances, as may conduce according to God, unto such reformation: examples whereof we read, Neh. x, 32 to 39; 2 Chron. xv, 12,13. For the second question; how far the fraternity, or the brethren of the church, may concur with the elders in exercising the power of the synod? The answer is; the power which they have received, is a power

of liberty: As 1. They have liberty to dispute their doubts modestly and Christianly amongst the elders: For in that synod at Jerusalem, as there was much disputation, Acts xv, 7 so the multitude had a part in the disputation, ver. 12. For after Petet’s speech, it is said, the whole multitude kept silence, and silence from what? to wit, from the speech last in hand amongst them, and that was, from disputation. 2. The brethren of the church had liberty to join with the apostles and elders, in approving of the sentence of James, and determining the same as the common sentence of them all. 3. They had liberty to join with the apostles and elders in choosing and sending messengers, and in writing

synodal \etters in the names of all, for the publishing of the sentence of the synod. Both these points are expressed in the text, vers. 22,23 to 29. Then pleased it the apostles and elders, with the whole church, to send chosen men, and to write letters by them. See the whole church distinguished from the apostles and elders ; and those whom he called the whole Church, ver. 22. he calleth the brethren, ver. 23. the apostles, and elders, and brethren, etc.

But though it may not be denied, that the brethren of the church present in the synod, had all this power of liberty, to join with the apostles and elders in all these acts of the synod;

THE KEYS 121 yet the authority of the decrees lay chiefly (if not only) in the apostles and elders. And therefore it is said, Acts xvi, 4, that Paul and Silas delivered to the churches for to keep the decrees that were ordained of the apostles and elders: so then it will be most safe to preserve to the church of brethren their due liberties, and to reserve to the elders their due authority. If it be said, the elders assembled in a synod, have no authority

to determine or conclude any act that shall bind the churches, but according to the instructions which before they have received from the churches.

Ans. We do not so apprehend it; for what need churches send to a synod for light and direction in ways of truth and peace, if they be resolved aforehand how far they will go? It is true, if the elders of churches shall conclude in a synod any thing prejudicial to the truth and peace of the Gospel, they may justly expostulate with them at their return, and refuse such sanctions as the Lord hath not sancited.*® But if the elders be gathered in the name of Christ in a synod, and proceed according to the rule (the word) of Christ, they may consider and conclude sundry

points expedient for the estate of their churches, which the churches were either ignorant or doubtful of before.

As for the third question, whether the synod have power to

enjoin such things as are both in their nature and their use indifferent ? We should answer it negatively, and our reasons be: 1. From the pattern of that precedent of synods, Acts xv, 18. They laid upon the churches no other burthen, but those neces-

sary things: necessary, though not all of them in their own nature, yet for present use, to avoid the offense both of Jew and Gentile: of the Jew, by eating things strangled and blood; of the Gentile and Jew both, by eatzng things sacrificed to idols, as Paul expoundeth that article of the synod, 1 Cor. viii, 10,11,12 and x, 16 [A rare form of “sanctioned.’’]

122 JOHN COTTON 28. This eating with offense was a murder of a weak brothet’s soul, and a sin against Christ, 1 Cor. viii, 11,12, and therefore necessary to be forborn, necessitate precepti, by the necessity of God’s commandment. 2. A second reason may be from the latitude of the apostolical commission, which was given to them, Matt. xxviii, 19,20. where the apostles are commanded to teach the people to observe all things which Christ had commanded. If then the apostles teach the people to observe more than Christ hath commanded, they go beyond the bounds of their commission and a larger

commission than that given to the apostles, nor elders, nor synods, nor churches can challenge.

If it be said, Christ speaketh only of teaching such things which He had commended, as necessary to salvation. Ans. If the apostles or their successors should hereupon usurp

an authority to teach the people things indifferent, they must plead this their authority from some other commission given them elsewhere: for in this place there is no footstep for any such power. That much urged and much abused place in 1 Cor. xiv, 40, will not reach it. For though Paul requiring in that

place, all the duties of God’s worship, whether prayer or prophecying, or psalms, or tongues, etc. that they should be performed decently and orderly, he thereby forbiddeth any per-

formance thereof undecently; as for men with long hair, and women to speak in open assemblies, especially to pray with their

hair loose about them. And though he forbiddeth also men speaking two or three at once, which to do, were not order, but confusion; yet he doth not at all, neither himself enjoin, nor allow the church of Corinth to enjoin such things as decent, whose want, or whose contraty is not undecent; nor such orders,

whose want or contrary would be no disorder. Suppose the church of Corinth, (or any other church or synod) should en-

THE KEYS 123 join their ministers to preach in a gown. A gown is a decent garment to preach in: yet such an injunction is not grounded upon that text of the apostle. For then a minister in neglecting to

preach in a gown should neglect the commandment of the apostle, which yet indeed he doth not. For if he preach in a cloak, he preacheth decently enough, and that is all which the apostle’s canon reacheth to. In these things Christ never provided for uniformity, but only for unity. For a third reason of this point, (and to add no more) it is taken from the nature of the ministerial office, whether in a church or synod. Their office is stewardly, not lordly: they are ambassadors from Christ, and for Christ. Of a steward it 1s required he be found faithful, 1 Cor. iv, 1,2, and therefore he may dispense no more injunctions to God's house, than Christ hath appointed him: neither may an ambassador proceed to do any act of his office, further than what he hath received in his commission from his prince. If he go further, he maketh himself a prevaricator, not an ambassador. But if it be enquired, whether a synod hath power of ordination and excommunication; we would not take upon us hastily to censure the many notable precedents of ancient and later synods, who have put forth acts of power in both these kinds. Only we doubt that from the beginning it was not so: and for our own parts, if any occasion of using this power should arise amongst ourselves (which hitherto through preventing mercy it hath not) we (in a synod) should rather choose to determine, and to publish and declare our determination. That the ordination of such as we find fit for it, and the excommunication of such as we find do deserve it, would be an acceptable service both to the Lord, and to his churches: but the administration of both these acts we should refer to the presbytery of the several

churches, wheteto the person to be ordained is called, and

124 JOHN COTTON whereof the person to be excommunicated is a member: and both acts to be performed in the presence, and with the consent of the

several churches, to whom the matter appertaineth. For in the beginning of the Gospel in that precedent of synods, Acts xv, we find the false teachers declared to be disturbers and troublers of the churches, and subverters of their souls, Acts, xv, 24, but no condign censure dispensed against them by the synod. An

evident argument to us, that they left the censure of such offenders (in case they repented not) to the particular churches, to whom they did appertain. And for synodical ordination, al-

though Act. i be alleged, where Matthias was called to be an apostle, yet it doth not appear that they acted then in a synodical way: no more than the church of Antioch did, when with fasting and prayer they by their presbyters zmposed hands on Paul and Barnabas, and thereby separated them to the work of the apostleship, whereto the Holy Ghost had called them, Acts xiii, 1,2,3. Whence as the Holy Ghost then said, ’Agoptoate 8& ol tov te BapvéBav xal tov Lasdov: so thereupon Paul styleth himself ’Andotohoc &fworopévos,?” Rom. i, 1. And this was done

in a particular church, not in a synod.

CHAPTER VII T ouching the first subject of all the forementioned power of the keys. And an explanation of Independency What that church is, which is the first subject of the power of the keys, and whether this church have an independent power in the exercise thereof, though they be made two distinct ques17 [Separate indeed to me both Barnabas and Paul: so thereupon Paul styleth himself a called apostle.]

THE KEYS 125 tions, yet (if candidly interpreted) they are but one. For whatsoever is the first subject of any accident or adjunct, the same is independent in the enjoyment of it, that is, in respect of deriving it from any other subject like itself. As if fire be the first subject of heat, then it dependeth upon no other subject for heat. Now in the first subject of any power, three things concur. 1. It first teceiveth that power whereof it is the first subject, and that reciprocally. 2. It first addeth and putteth forth the exercise of that power. 3. It first communicateth that power to others. As we see in fire, which is the first subject of heat: it first receiveth heat, and that reciprocally. All fire is hot, and whatsoever is hot is fire, or hath fire in it. Again, fire first putteth forth heat itself, and also first communicateth heat, to whatsoever things else are hot. To come then to the first subject of church power,

or of the power of the keys. The substance of the doctrine thereof, may be conceived and declared in a few propositions. Church power is either supreme and soverezgn, or subordinate and ministerial. Touching the former, take this proposition. The Lord Jesus Christ, the ead of his church, is the 1 patov Aeutixov,"* the first proper subject of the sovereign power of the keys. He hath the key of David: He openeth, and no man shutteth; He shutteth, and no man openeth, Rev. iii, 7. The government is upon his shoulder, Isai. ix, 6. And himself declareth the

same to his apostles, as the ground of his granting to them apostolical power. A// power (saith He) is given to me in heaven and earth, Matt. xxviii, 18. Go ye therefore, etc. Hence 1. All legislative power (power of making of laws) in

the church is in Him, and not from Him derived to any other, Jam. iv, 12, Isai. xxxiti, 22. The power derived to others, is only to publish and execute his laws and ordinances, and to see them 18 [First recipient.]

126 JOHN COTTON observed, Matt. xxviii, 20. His Jaws ave perfect, Psal. xix, 9. and do make the men of God perfect to every good work, 2 Tim. 11, 17, and need no addition. 2. From his sovereign power it proceedeth, that He only can erect and ordain a true constitution of a church estate, Heb. iii, 3 to 6. He buildeth his own house, and setteth the pattern of it, as God gave to David the pattern of Solomon’s temple, 1 Chron.

xxvili, 19. None hath power to erect any other church frame, than as this master-builder hath left us a pattern thereof in the Gospel. In the Old Testament the church set up by Him was national, in the New, congregational; yet so as that in sundry cases it is ordered by him, many congregations or their messengers, may be assembled into a synod. Acts. xv. 3. It is from the same sovereign power, that all the offices, of ministeries in the church are ordained by Him, 1 Cor. xii, 5, yea and all the members are set in the body by Him, together with all the power belonging to their offices and places: as in the natural body, so in the church, 1 Cor. xii, 18. 4. From this sovereign power in like sort it is, that all gifts to discharge any office, by the officers, or any duty by the members, are from Him, 1 Cor. xii, 11. All treasures of wisdom, and

knowledge, and grace, and the fulness thereof are in Him for that end, Col. it, 3 and ver. 9,10; John 1, 16.

5. From this sovereign power it is, that all the spiritual power, and efficacy, and blessing, in the administration of these gifts in these offices and places, for the gathering, and edifying, and perfecting of all the churches, and of all the saints in them is from Him, Matt. xxviii, 20. Lo I am with you always, etc. Col.

i, 29; 1 Cor. xv, 9. The good pleasure of the Father, the personal union of the humane nature with the eternal Son of God, his purchase of his

THE KEYS 127 church with his own blood, and his deep humiliation of himself unto the death of the cross, have all of them obtained to Him this his highest exaltation, to be head over all things unto the church, and to enjoy as king thereof this sovereign power, Col. i, 19; Col. ii, 2,9,10; Acts xx, 28; Phil. 11, 8 to 11. But of this sovereign power of Christ, there is no question amongst Protestants, especially studious of reformation. Now as concerning the ministerial power, we give these following propositions.

I. Propos.